Abstract

The Transparent Semiconductor Optical Amplifier-based Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror (TSOA-NOLM) exhibits fast switching with a recovery time of the order of a few picoseconds, cascadable switching functionalities, low cross-talk between adjacent channels and low noise ligures [1]. The transparency carrier density of the SOA is, however, significantly dependent upon the pump pulse power [1], which would seriously limit the practical utilisation of TSOA-NOLMs. In this paper, it is shown that long SOAs can be employed in TSOA-NOLMs to both considerably reduce the pump power dependence of the transparency carrier density of the SOAs and also to significantly increase the transmission of the switches.

© 2000 IEEE