ALL-OPTICAL DEMULTIPLEXING OF 80 TO 10 GB S SIGNALS WITH MONOLITHIC INTEGRATED HIGH-PERFORMANCE MACH-ZEHNDER INTERFEROMETER/

A novel high-performance monolithic integrated Mach-Zehnder interferom eter with semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA's) in its arms has bee n realized and 80-Gb/s all-optical demultiplexing demonstrated, Penalt y-free operation for 40-10-Gb/s demultiplexing has also been achieved, Dynamic range with respect to the input signal power for error-free o peration at 40 Gb/s is more than 17 dB and fiber-to-fiber loss less th an 2 dB, A theoretical model which takes into consideration amplifier gain dynamics and pulse propagation describes the demultiplexing exper iments and predicts the device performances also at higher bit rates.