All-optical Flip-flop Operation Based on Polarization Bistability of Conventional-type 1.55-㎛ Wavelength Single-mode VCSELs

We report, for the first time to our knowledge, observation of polarization bistability from 1.55-µm wavelength single-mode VCSELs of a conventional cylinder-shape under control of their driving current, and demonstration of all-optical flip-flop (AOFF) operations based on the bistability with optical set and reset pulse injection at a 50 MHz switching frequency. The injection pulse energy was less than 14 fJ. The average on-off contrast ratio of the flip-flopped signals was about 7 dB. These properties of the VCSELs will be potentially useful for future high-speed all-optical signal processing applications.

[1]  Mario Dagenais,et al.  Optical injection induced polarization bistability in vertical‐cavity surface‐emitting lasers , 1993 .

[2]  D. Petrantonakis,et al.  40-Gb/s All-Optical Processing Systems Using Hybrid Photonic Integration Technology , 2006, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[3]  M. Smit,et al.  A fast low-power optical memory based on coupled micro-ring lasers , 2004, Nature.

[4]  T. Katayama,et al.  Experimental Demonstration of Multi-Bit Optical Buffer Memory Using 1.55-$\mu{\hbox {m}}$ Polarization Bistable Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers , 2009, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.

[5]  K. Shore,et al.  Optical Injection-Induced Polarization Switching Dynamics in 1.5-$\mu$m Wavelength Single-Mode Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers , 2008, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[6]  Geert Morthier,et al.  An ultra-small, low power all-optical flip-flop memory on a silicon chip , 2010 .

[7]  Jing Wang,et al.  All-Optical Clocked Flip-Flops and Binary Counting Operation Using SOA-Based SR Latch and Logic Gates , 2010, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[8]  R. Baets,et al.  40-Gb/s All-Optical Packet Switching With a Distributed-Feedback Laser as All-Optical Flip-Flop , 2009, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[9]  Hitoshi Kawaguchi,et al.  Low-switching-energy and high-repetition-frequency all-optical flip-flop operations of a polarization bistable vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser , 2006 .

[10]  G Puerto,et al.  All-Optical flip-flop operation using a SOA and DFB laser diode optical feedback combination. , 2007, Optics express.

[11]  Geert Morthier,et al.  Fast all-optical flip-flop based on a single distributed feedback laser diode. , 2008, Optics express.

[12]  A.M.J. Koonen,et al.  Ultrafast All-Optical Wavelength Routing of Data Packets Utilizing an SOA-Based Wavelength Converter and a Monolithically Integrated Optical Flip–Flop , 2008, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[13]  Yong Hyub Won,et al.  All-optical flip-flop with high on-off contrast ratio using two injection-locked single-mode Fabry-Perot laser diodes. , 2007, Optics express.

[14]  K.-H. Lee,et al.  All-epitaxial InAlGaAs-InP VCSELs in the 1.3-1.6-/spl mu/m wavelength range for CWDM band applications , 2006, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[15]  H. Kawaguchi,et al.  Polarization-bistable vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers: application for optical bit memory , 2009 .