Abstract

Optical wavelength conversion and gating will be key functions in future optical high-capacity switching matrices. By these functions it is possible to realize both time and space switching.¹ Two examples are shown in Figs. 1 (a) and 1 (b), where a simple 2×2 space switch is realized by optical wavelength converters and optical gates, respectively. High capacity is obtained by operating at high bit rates and with a low reconfiguration time and a large optical bandwidth. Both wavelength conversion and gating can be achieved by semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA’s), as previously reported^2,3 for bit rates as high as 2.5 Gbit/s. The advantages of SOA’s are that they can be polarization independent and that the operating conditions (i.e., input power and bias current) are less critical than for other types of devices. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate operation of SOA’s used as wavelength converters and gates at 4 Gbit/s.

© 1993 Optical Society of America