Analysis and Fabrication of an All-Optical Wavelength Converter Based on Directionally-Coupled Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

Byongjin MA  Masumi SAITOH  Yoshiaki NAKANO  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Electronics   Vol.E83-C   No.2   pp.248-254
Publication Date: 2000/02/25
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Optoelectronics
Keyword: 
wavelength converter,  directional coupler,  semiconductor optical amplifier,  all-optical,  digital response,  

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Summary: 
The operation of a novel all-optical wavelength converter based on directionally-coupled semiconductor optical amplifiers is described. Merits such as extinction enhancement and digital response are expected through a simple analytical model and a sophisticated transfer matrix method developed to take into account the spatial distributions of the optical power, carrier density, refractive index, propagation constant, and coupling coefficient along device. We fabricated devices operating at 1.55 µm band using an InGaAsP/InP material system and demonstrated successfully the static characteristics of wavelength conversion with the expected advantages. Devices are as small as 1.5 mm and do not need any active/passive integration step during fabrication.