A Review on Nonlinearity in Semiconductor optical Amplifer as Application in all Optical Signal Processing

Abstract

The optical signal processing is the future of communication network. High speed all-optical packet routing is one of the essential applications of all-optical networks which is only possible with the development of all-optical logic technology. The development of optical logic elements and circuits are the steps in the growth of this technology and higher speed up to Tbit/sec can be achieved. The optical carrier frequency range 1013 to 1016 Hz provides enormous potential bandwidth with superior information carrying capacity over a long transmission distance. The need of higher capacity is continuing to encourage research in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) based transmission systems, which need optical demultiplexing and wavelength conversion technology. Therefore, for high-speed optical networks, it is required to develop the all-optical gates to avoid power consumption in opto-electronics conversion. All optical logic gates perform computing operations, storage and transmission of data using light also known as optical computing. Optical technology promises massive upgrades in the efficiency and speed of computers, aswell as significant shrinkage in their size and cost. The non-linear optical device to be used i.e. Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) has proved to be the promising for all optical functions like wavelength conversion, logic functions, signal representation in all optical domain. Its compact size, high gain, fast response, strong refractive index variation, easy to manufacture and integration, and power efficiency makes it most optimum device for optical signal processing. In this paper, the application of SOA in optical processing is thoroughly reviewed and orient towards the latest application in neural networks.