SEMICONDUCTOR OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS
Semiconductor
Optical Amplifiers
by
Michael J. Connelly
University of Limerick, Ireland
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW
eBook ISBN:
Print ISBN:
0-306-48156-1
0-7923-7657-9
©2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers
New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow
Print ©2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers
Dordrecht
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For my parents Michael and Margeret
and brother Brendan
Contents
Preface
INTRODUCTION
BASIC PRINCIPLES
STRUCTURES
MATERIALS
MODELLING
BASIC NETWORK APPLICATIONS
FUNCTIONAL APPLICATIONS
Index
vii
ix
1
7
21
43
69
97
127
167
Preface
Communications can be broadly defined as the transfer of information from
one point to another. In optical fibre communications, this transfer is
achieved by using light as the information carrier. There has been an
exponential growth
in the deployment and capacity of optical fibre
communication technologies and networks over the past twenty-five years.
This growth has been made possible by the development of new
optoelectronic technologies that can be utilised to exploit the enormous
potential bandwidth of optical fibre. Today, systems are operational which
operate at aggregate bit rates in excess of 100 Gb/s. Such high capacity
systems exploit the optical fibre bandwidth by employing wavelength
division multiplexing.
Optical technology is the dominant carrier of global information. It is also
central to the realisation of future networks that will have the capabilities
demanded by society. These capabilities
include virtually unlimited
bandwidth to carry communication services of almost any kind, and full
transparency that allows terminal upgrades in capacity and flexible routing
of channels. Many of the advances in optical networks have been made
possible by the advent of the optical amplifier.
In general, optical amplifiers can be divided into two classes: optical fibre
amplifiers and semiconductor amplifiers. The former has tended to dominate
conventional system applications such as in-line amplification used to
compensate for fibre
in optical
semiconductor fabrication techniques and device design, especially over the
last five years, the semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is showing great
promise for use in evolving optical communication networks. It can be
utilised as a general gain unit but also has many functional applications
including an optical switch, modulator and wavelength converter. These
losses. However, due
to advances
ix
x
Introduction
functions, where there is no conversion of optical signals into the electrical
domain, are required in transparent optical networks.
It is the intention of this book to provide the reader with a comprehensive
introduction to the design and applications of SOAs, particularly with regard
to their use in optical communication systems. It is hoped that the book has
achieved this aim.