Optical processors using semiconductor optical amplifiers

Semiconductor optical amplifiers are important for wide range of applications in optical networks, optical tomography and optical logic systems. For many of these applications particularly for optical networks and optical logic, high speed performance of the SOA is important. All optical Boolean operations such as XOR, OR, AND and NOR has been demonstrated using SOA based Mach-Zhender interferometers (SOA-MZI). A rate equation model for SOA-MZI has been developed. The model has been used to analyze the Set-Reset (S-R) latch, the gated S-R latch and the D-Flip-Flop devices. The modeling results suggest that the Flip-Flop circuits should work at high speeds. An optical pseudo-random bit stream (PRBS) generator is important for all-optical encryption circuits. A model of a PRBS generator using SOAMZI based devices has been developed. We show that a PRBS generator can work @ 80 Gb/s using regular SOAs and @ ~ 250 Gb/s or at higher speeds using two-photon absorption based processes in SOAs.