Investigation of dynamic response of quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifiers under different pumping schemes

A comparison between the dynamic response of a QD-SOA under three different pumping schemes (optical, electrical, and electro-optical) is presented in this paper. For this purpose, we have used the state space model of QD-SOA to investigate the ultra-fast gain dynamics of the amplifier. We found that under equal pumping power, the electrical pumping scheme is more efficient than optical and electro-optical ones. Simulation results show that the electrical pumping scheme not only provides a higher optical gain compared to two other schemes, but also reduces the gain recovery time of the QD-SOA. Furthermore, the practical implementation of electrical pumping scheme is much simpler than two other ones.