Design of SOA-based dual-loop optical buffer with a 3 × 3 collinear coupler: guideline and optimizations

Author

Fu, Songnian ; Shum, P. ; Zhang, Liren ; Wu, Chongqing ; Liu, A.M.

Author_Institution

Network Technol. Res. Centre, Nanyang Technol. Univ., Singapore

Volume

24

Issue

7

fYear

2006

fDate

7/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2768

Lastpage

2778

Abstract

In this paper, theoretical and experimental analyses of the semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-based dual-loop all optical buffer (DLOB) with a 3 × 3 collinear coupler are presented. Two kinds of DLOB configurations and their choices of nonlinear elements are compared. After that, a novel SOA-based DLOB with Sagnac configuration is proposed. The proposed DLOB is simple, compact, and inherently stable. The required control signal power of this optical buffer (OB) is on the order of 1 mW, and no extra optical amplifier is needed to compensate the power loss. How the linewidth enhancement factor of SOA, the asymmetry power ratio, and the polarization characteristic of 3 × 3 collinear coupler, as well as SOA directional gain difference, may hamper the performance is examined systematically. Finally, the loading and reading operations with DLOB for packet data at the bit rate of 150 Mb/s and 2.5 Gb/s are demonstrated.

Keywords

optical communication equipment; optical design techniques; optical directional couplers; optical fibre communication; optical fibre couplers; packet switching; semiconductor optical amplifiers; spectral line breadth; 150 Mbit/s; 2.5 Gbit/s; SOA; Sagnac configuration; asymmetry power ratio; collinear coupler; directional gain difference; dual-loop optical buffer design; linewidth enhancement factor; packet data; semiconductor optical amplifier; Design optimization; Guidelines; Nonlinear optics; Optical buffering; Optical control; Optical coupling; Optical design; Sagnac interferometers; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Stimulated emission; All optical buffer (OB); all optical packet switching (OPS); collinear 3; interferometric switch; linewidth enhancement factor; polarization; semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2006.876092

Filename

1650553