Semiclassical analysis of the impact of noise in SOA-based optical pulse delay discriminator

We analyze the impact of noise on an optical pulse delay discriminator (OPDD) that can measure the relative delay between counter-propagating pulses. The OPDD uses the voltage difference between two contacts on an semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) as an output. We show amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) reduces the sensitivity (i.e., voltage/unit-delay) but has no impact on the linear operating range. We use the semiclassical optical noise theory to find the variance of the voltage fluctuations in contact electrodes. Assuming that the voltage noise processes are Gaussian, the analysis fully characterizes the impact of noise on the operation of OPDD. Our results are consistent with previously published numerical simulations of OPDDs with ASE and ASE-free models

[1]  Carsten Bornholdt,et al.  Self-pulsating DFB laser for all-optical clock recovery at 40 Gbit/s , 2000 .

[2]  A. Ellis,et al.  Compact 40Gbit/s optical demultiplexer using a GaInAsP optical amplifier , 1993 .

[3]  J. Goldhar,et al.  Subharmonic optical clock recovery from 160 Gb/s using time-dependent loss saturation inside a single electroabsorption modulator , 2003, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[4]  M. Premaratne,et al.  Analytical characterization of SOA-based optical pulse delay discriminator , 2005, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[5]  Anders Karlsson,et al.  Traveling wave semiconductor laser amplifier detectors , 1990 .

[6]  Reduced component count optical delay discriminator using a semiconductor optical amplifier-detector. , 2005, Optics express.

[7]  Yoshihisa Yamamoto,et al.  Theory of noise in p-n junction light emitters , 1997 .

[8]  Jacques I. Pankove,et al.  Optical Processes in Semiconductors , 1971 .

[9]  Andrew D. Ellis,et al.  Optical 3R regenerator for 40 Gbit/s networks , 1999 .

[10]  Arthur J. Lowery.  Amplified spontaneous emission in semiconductor laser amplifiers: validity of the transmission-line laser model , 1990 .

[11]  Guido Giuliani,et al.  Noise in an optical amplifier: formulation of a new semiclassical model , 1997 .

[12]  Zhihong Li,et al.  Comb-like filter preprocessing to reduce the pattern effect in the clock recovery based on SOA , 2002, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[13]  J. Goldhar,et al.  Optical clock recovery using SOA for relative timing extraction between counterpropagating short picosecond pulses , 2002, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[14]  N. Olsson,et al.  Self-phase modulation and spectral broadening of optical pulses in semiconductor laser amplifiers , 1989 .

[15]  C. Henry.  Theory of spontaneous emission noise in open resonators and its application to lasers and optical amplifiers , 1986 .

[16]  Arthur J. Lowery,et al.  Up to 16 dB improvement in detected voltage using two-section semiconductor optical amplifier detector , 1992 .

[17]  A. Sharaiha,et al.  Analysis of the sign reversal of the photodetected signal response in a multielectrode semiconductor optical amplifier , 2001 .

[18]  D. Novak,et al.  Modeling noise and modulation performance of fiber grating external cavity lasers , 1997 .

[19]  Calculation of photon and current fluctuations in traveling-wave semiconductor laser amplifiers , 1991 .

[20]  M. Scully,et al.  The Quantum Theory of Light , 1974 .