Modeling of semiconductor optical amplifiers for interferometric switching applications

Summary form only given. Various applications of all-optical signal processing, e.g, demultiplexing in optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) systems or optical sampling, can be accomplished by all-optical switches based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in interferometric configurations. To optimize such switching devices, it is useful to have a model which describes the temporal characteristics of the switches accurately. The SOA model, which we present, takes the pulse propagation and the gain dynamics into account. The gain dynamics is determined by carrier density modulation (also called carrier density pulsation, CDP) and carrier heating (CH), calculated in separate rate equations.