Abstract
A theoretical model is presented to analyze the noise transfer
characteristics in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) under the excitation
of a noisy pump signal and a noise-free probe signal. An analytical expression
is derived for the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) of the output probe
signal from the SOA. The influence of the gain saturation of the SOA, and
the pump and probe signal powers on the noise transfer characteristics is
investigated. The noise transfer model is used to determine the output noise
power of a delay interference wavelength converter. An analytical expression
is obtained for the nonlinear phase change in the SOA, which determines the
output power of the wavelength-converted signal. These results show that the
noise transfer in the wavelength conversion can be suppressed by increasing
the probe signal power, but that the improvement in the output signal OSNR
relative to the input signal OSNR is accompanied by a reduction in the conversion
efficiency. This fundamental tradeoff can be readily investigated during the
design optimization process using the concise results derived in this paper.
© IEEE
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