HIGH-CAIN, HIGH-POWER 1550-NM POLARIZATION-INDEPENDENT MQW OPTICAL AMPLIFIER

A practical 1550-nm polarization independent semiconductor optical amp lifier configuration employing compressively strained quantum wells an d a few commercially available optical components is reported, Crossta lk from counter propagating light, which may easily occur in such a co nfiguration, has been sufficiently suppressed for practical use, For t he entire configuration a net fiber-to-fiber gain of 17 dB, a 3-dB sat uration output power of 13 dBm and a noise figure of 9 dB have been de monstrated, The polarization dependence was only 0.7 dB, The polarizat ion independent 1550-nm semiconductor optical amplifier reported here is attractive when power consumption and compactness are of major conc ern and especially for applications involving nonlinear signal process ing and switching.