Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

310 Pages·2006·5.15 MB·English

by  Nilroy K. Dutta

Semiconductor
Optical Amplifiers
TThhiiss ppaaggee iinntteennttiioonnaallllyy lleefftt bbllaannkk
Semiconductor
Optical Amplifiers
Niloy K Dutta & Qiang Wang
University of Connecticut, USA
World Scientific
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
SEMICONDUCTOR OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS
Copyright © 2006 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
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ISBN 981-256-397-0
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Printed in Singapore.
CheeHok - Semiconductor.pmd 1 11/27/2006, 1:08 PM
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Contents
Preface ix
Authors’ Biographies xi
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Historical Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Semiconductor Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Operating Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 Book Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.6 Future Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.7 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2. Basic Concepts 15
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Optical Gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Dielectric Waveguide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.4 Condition for Amplification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.5 P-N Junction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.6 Amplifier Characteristics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.7 Multiquantum Well Amplifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3. Recombination Mechanisms and Gain 35
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.2 Radiative Recombination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3 Nonradiative Recombination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
v
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vi Contents
3.4 Quantum Well Amplifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.5 Gain in Quantum Wire (QWR) and
Quantum Dot (QD) Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4. Epitaxial Growth and Amplifier Designs 81
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.2 Material Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.3 Epitaxial Growth Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.4 Strained Layer Epitaxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.5 Selective Area Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.6 Amplifier Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.7 Growth of QWR and QD Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5. Low Reflectivity Facet Designs 111
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.2 Low Reflectivity Coatings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.3 Buried Facet Amplifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.4 Tilted Facet Amplifiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.5 Amplified Spontaneous Emission and Optical Gain . . . . . 122
5.6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6. Amplifier Rate Equations and Operating Characteristics 129
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.2 Amplifier Rate Equations for Pulse Propagation . . . . . . 130
6.3 Pulse Amplification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.4 Multichannel Amplification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.5 Amplifier Application in Optical Transmission Systems . . . 139
6.6 Amplifier Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
6.7 Gain Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
6.8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
7. Photonic Integrated Circuit Using Amplifiers 173
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
7.2 Integrated Laser and Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
7.3 Multichannel WDM Sources with Amplifiers . . . . . . . . . 176
7.4 Spot Size Conversion(SSC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
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Contents vii
7.5 Mach-Zehnder Interferometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
8. Functional Properties and Applications 183
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
8.2 Four-Wave Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
8.3 Cross Gain Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8.4 Cross Phase Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
8.5 Wavelength Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
8.6 Optical Demultiplexing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
8.7 OTDM System Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
8.8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
9. Optical Logic Operations 221
9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
9.2 Optical Logic XOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
9.3 Optical Logic OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
9.4 Optical Logic AND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
9.5 Optical Logic INVERT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
9.6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
10. Optical Logic Circuits 263
10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
10.2 Adder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
10.3 Parity Checker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
10.4 All-Optical Pseudorandom Binary Sequence
(PRBS) Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
10.5 All-Optical Header Processor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
10.6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Index 289
TThhiiss ppaaggee iinntteennttiioonnaallllyy lleefftt bbllaannkk
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Preface
In the past two decades optical communications has changed the way we
communicate. It is a revolution that has fundamentally transformed the
core of telecommunications, its basic science, its enabling technology, and
its industry. The optical networking technology represents a revolution
inside the optical communications revolution and it allows the latter to
continue its exponential growth.
The existence and advance of optical fiber communications is based on
the invention of low-loss optical fibers, the invention of the laser, particu-
larlythesemiconductorjunctionlaser,andtheinventionofphotodetectors.
From the early pioneering ideas, it took more than 25 years, to the first
commercialdeploymentofopticalcommunications,the NortheastCorridor
system linking Washington and New York in 1983. Another important ad-
vance has been the deployment of the first transatlantic submarine optical
fiber transmission system in 1988. Optical fiber communications began to
seriously impact the way information is transmitted beginning with these
milestone achievements.
The commercial demand for higher capacity transmission was helped
bythe factthatcomputerscontinuedtobecome morepowerfulandneeded
to be interconnected. This is one of the key reasons why the explosive
growth of optical fiber transmission technology parallels that of computer
processingandotherkeyinformationtechnologies. Thesetechnologieshave
combinedtomeettheexplosiveglobaldemandfornewinformationservices
including data, internet, and broadband services, and, most likely, their
rapid advance has helped fuel this demand. This demand is continuing its
strong growth as internet traffic keeps increasing every year.
Optical networking represents the next advance in optical communi-
cations technology. Semiconductor optical amplifier is a key device for
ix