ULTRAFAST OPTICAL SIGNAL-PROCESSING USING SEMICONDUCTOR-LASER AMPLIFIERS

Optical fibres exhibit a bandwidth of about 50 THz, which enables data transmission in excess of 100 Gbit s(-1). This potential for ultrafas t optical signal transmission stimulates the research on appropriate f unctional devices for optical switching and optical signal processing in general. A promising device is the semiconductor laser amplifier (S LA). It enables optical signal processing in the femtosecond range whe n it is operated under conditions where intraband dynamics with subpic osecond time constants are dominating. A suitable experimental techniq ue for operating the SLA under these conditions is four-wave mixing. B ased on this technique, various applications for optical signal proces sing have been investigated, such as optical switches, demultiplexers, wavelength converters and phase conjugators. In this article we descr ibe these experiments and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of optical signal processing using SLAs.