DIGITAL TRANSMISSION EXPERIMENT WITH MONOLITHIC 4 X 4 INGAASP INP LASER-AMPLIFIER GATE SWITCH ARRAY/

Digital transmission experiments at 2.488 Gbit/s involving a monolithi c 4 x 4 semiconductor laser amplifier gate switch array operating at a round 0 dB fibre-to-fibre gain have been performed. Receiver power pen alties less than 1 dB are reported for a switch input power range in e xcess of 10 dB. Results on switch saturation include a switch signal o utput power, coupled to the output fibre, of -5 dBm for 3 dB gain comp ression of the 4 x 4 switch.