THE USE OF POLARIZATION EFFECTS IN SEMICONDUCTOR OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS TO PERFORM ALL-OPTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSING EL USO DE EFECTOS DE POLARIZACIÓN EN AMPLIFICADORES ÓPTICOS SEMICONDUCTORES PARA REALIZAR EL PROCESAMIENTO DE SEÑALES EN EL DOMINIO ÓPTICO

As the need for higher and higher bandwidths in telecommunication systems continues, it is widely predicted that at some point in the future optical processing will need to be performed all-optically. Several techniques have been proposed to perform such all-optical signal processing. In this paper a technique based on the nonlinear rotation in the state of polarization of an optical signal injected into a bulk semiconductor optical amplifier is discussed. An experiment to perform wavelength conversion at 2.5 Gbit/s based on this effect is presented. The performance of the wavelength converter is tested in both co-and counter-propagation, and wavelength independent wavelength conversion is found in the non-inverted co-propagation setup.

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