SPECTRAL BROADENING OF STOCHASTIC LIGHT INTENSITY-SMOOTHED BY A SATURATED SEMICONDUCTOR OPTICAL AMPLIFIER

We present calculations of the intensity smoothing of stochastic light by a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). We predict spectral chang es of the light that are due to amplitude-to-phase coupling in the gai n medium. The intensity smoothing of noisy optical signals with an SOA carries a penalty of spectral broadening (increased phase noise) that increases with increasing alpha parameter (linewidth enhancement fact or). The spectral broadening also increases with increasing strength o f the intensity fluctuations being smoothed.