An InP-Based Optical Equalizer Monolithically Integrated With a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

We present the first optical equalizer realized on Indium Phosphide material that is also monolithically integrated with a semiconductor optical amplifier. We show that the device can mitigate inter-symbol interference arising from narrowband optical filtering of 40-Gb/s non-return-to-zero data. Significant improvement in the measured bit-error rates after optical equalization of the filtered signal is reported. It is shown that the device can also mitigate the impairments arising from residual chirp and electrical filtering in the transmitter and receiver.