20 ps Transition Time All-Optical SOA-Based Flip-Flop Used for Photonic 10 Gb/s Switching Operation Without Any Bit Loss

A novel scheme for integrable ultrafast all-optical flip-flop is demonstrated. Transition times as low as 20 ps with a contrast ratio higher than 17.5 dB have been experimentally measured. All-optical switching operation in a 2 \times 2 spatial and wavelength preserving switch is reported with a pow...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of selected topics in quantum electronics 2008-05, Vol.14 (3), p.808-815
Main Authors: Malacarne, Antonio, Wang, Jing, Zhang, Yuancheng, Barman, Abhirup Das, Berrettini, Gianluca, PotÌ, Luca, Bogoni, Antonella
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
All-optical flip-flop
cross-gain modulation (XGM)
Falling
Flip-flops
Logic
Logic gates
Modulation
Noise levels
Nonlinear optics
Optical bistability
optical bistable devices
Optical losses
optical packet switching (OPS)
optical signal processing (OSP)
Power semiconductor switches
semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)
Semiconductor optical amplifiers
Service oriented architecture
Stimulated emission
Switches
Switching
Ultrafast optics
Wavelength measurement
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Summary:A novel scheme for integrable ultrafast all-optical flip-flop is demonstrated. Transition times as low as 20 ps with a contrast ratio higher than 17.5 dB have been experimentally measured. All-optical switching operation in a 2 \times 2 spatial and wavelength preserving switch is reported with a power penalty of about 1 dB. The proposed solution exploits the fast falling edge provided by a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) based optical flip-flop. Numerical investigations already demonstrated high extinction ratios (>40 dB) and low switching energies (15.6 fJ) for integrated optical flip-flop. On the other hand, slow rising times, due to the cavity length, intrinsically limit such configurations. By using SOA-based logic gates, two flip-flop outputs are combined in a new bistable signal. Both the new rising and falling edges are related to the primary flip-flop falling edge. This way it is possible to eliminate the intrinsic slow rising time that limits the flip-flop configuration based on the coupled ring lasers, without excessively increasing the complexity of the structure and maintaining a reasonably high contrast ratio. Furthermore, the noise on the high level has been improved due to the regenerative properties of the logic gates based on cross-gain modulation and cross-phase modulation in a single nonlinear SOA. Finally, flip-flop output has been used to drive a 2 \times 2 all-optical spatial and wavelength preserving switch based on SOAs. For cross/bar switch configurations, 10 Gb/s error-free operation has been obtained without bit loss.
ISSN:1077-260X
1558-4542
DOI:10.1109/JSTQE.2008.918654