All-Optical Signal Processing Based on Nonlinear Effects in Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

In this paper, we report our recent studies on developing nonlinear techniques based on a single SOA for all-optical signal processing at high-speed, with a focus on simple configurations employing commercial SOAs for several key all-optical network applications. Our researches are based on nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR), four-wave mixing (FWM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) effects in a single SOA. We propose and demonstrate applications of the nonlinear techniques in all-optical logic gates, multi-function format coversion, tunable Lyot birefringent filter and multi-channel optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) demultiplexing.