Nonlinear Sagnac interferometer switch and its applications

Author

Jinno, Masahiko ; Matsumoto, Takao

Author_Institution

NTT Transmission Syst. Lab., Kanagawa, Japan

Volume

28

Issue

4

fYear

1992

fDate

4/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

875

Lastpage

882

Abstract

Ultrafast all-optical switching based on the optical Kerr effect in a Sagnac interferometer which consists of a dichroic polarization-maintaining fiber coupler and dispersion-shifted polarization-maintaining fiber loop is reported. This nonlinear Sagnac interferometer switch has the advantage of high stability originating from completely balanced interfering arms. In addition, because dispersion-shifted fibers were used, increases in switching power and switching time were prevented. Moreover, polarization fluctuation was completely suppressed due to the all-polarization maintaining fiber configuration. The required switching power for complete switching was measured to be 1.8 W for a 200-m-long fiber. All-optical time division demultiplexing and logic operations, including inversion and operation, using the nonlinear Sagnac interferometer switch were successfully demonstrated at 5 Gb/s

Keywords

fibre optics; light interferometers; optical Kerr effect; optical logic; optical switches; time division multiplexing; 1.8 W; 200 m; 3.8 Gbit/s; 5 Gbit/s; all optical time division multiplexing; applications; completely balanced interfering arms; dichroic polarization-maintaining fiber coupler; dispersion-shifted polarization-maintaining fiber loop; inversion; logic operations; nonlinear Sagnac interferometer switch; optical Kerr effect; polarization fluctuation; switching power; switching time; ultrafast all optical switching; Dispersion; Fiber nonlinear optics; Kerr effect; Optical coupling; Optical fiber couplers; Optical fiber polarization; Optical interferometry; Optical switches; Sagnac interferometers; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.135205

Filename

135205