Bit error rate characterization of 100 Gb/s all-optical demultiplexers

Summary form only given. Ultrafast all-optical switches have many applications in the development of ultrahigh speed multi-access time-division multiplexing (TDM) networks. For instance, ultra-high-speed bitwise logic, operating at the network data rate, is required for functions such as address recognition, buffering and rate conversion in user access nodes. In some cases, rate conversion from the ultra-high-speed optical bus rate (/spl ges/100 Gb/s) to lower-speed data streams may be achieved via demultiplexing. To date, the record speed for bitwise logic in a semiconductor-based device, of 100 Gb/s, has been demonstrated using an ultrafast nonlinear interferometer (UNI). However, the highest rate demultiplexing experiments have been performed using four-wave-mixing in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and using the terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer or TOAD. We compare the demultiplexing performance of a UNI and a TOAD, using similar SOAs in both switches. We show that the ultimate data rate that may be demultiplexed by the TOAD is limited by the length of the SOA in the interferometer. The UNI performance is not limited by device length.