Feature Issue on Photonics in Switching

Two-wavelength switching operation between two signals at different wavelengths is reported using the optical bistability occurring in two different semiconductor laser amplifiers. With this technique an optical signal can be set in either of the optical input wavelengths by appropriate choice of the powers of the input signals. Switching of a signal beam by another control beam at different wavelength is reported experimentally with a 1550 nm distributed feedback semiconductor optical amplifier. Also, a theoretical model has been generated to analyze the wavelength switching operation with a novel amplifier type--the 1550 nm vertical cavity semiconductor optical amplifier (VCSOA). Using a 1550 nm VCSOA, wavelength switching operation is reported with a calculated input power below 1 μW. This low input power requirement for switching added to the high-frequency response of the VCSOA, and the ease of fabricating 2D arrays of these devices due to the vertical structure, makes the VCSOA a very interesting device for use in optical switching applications in the optical telecommunication networks.

© 2007 Optical Society of America

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Citation lists with outbound citation links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

Related Journal Articles

• All-optical hysteresis control by means of cross-phase modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers (JOSAB)
• Observation of bistability in a Vertical-Cavity Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (VCSOA) (OE)
• Coupled Mach-Zehnder interferometer memory element (OL)
• Optical bistability in vertical-cavity semiconductor optical amplifiers (AO)
• Effects of parallel and orthogonal polarization on nonlinear optical characteristics of a 1550 nm VCSOA (OE)

Related Conference Papers

• Discrete cavity solitons
• Ultra high-speed wavelength conversion and regeneration using semiconductor optical amplifiers
• All-optical 2R regeneration using a non-linear vertical cavity semiconductor optical amplifier
• Observation of Wavelength Bistability in 850nm Vertical-Cavity Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (VCSOAs)
• First Commercial Service of a Colorless Gigabit WDM/TDM Hybrid PON System
• First Commercial Service of a Colorless Gigabit WDM/TDM Hybrid PON System