Abstract

The “spectrum-slicing” technique employing incoherent light has been shown to be a highly practical, cheap and hence very attractive proposal for future all-optical networks. In this study, the use of Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) gain saturation for intensity noise reduction of incoherent light is studied with a view to obtaining the optimum SOA injection current and input power conditions to achieve the best possible intensity noise reduction-in terms of OSNR, BER, noise power and Q-factor. The results reported herein give designers knowledge of the best SOA operating conditions to enhance overall system performance, while still obtaining signal gain from the SOA.

Keywords:

Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE), Bit Error Rate (BER), Optical Signal-to-Noise Ratio (OSNR), Quality (Q) factor, Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA), spectrum-slicing,

References

1. Chung, Y.C., J.S. Lee and D.J. Di Giovanni, 1993. Spectrum-sliced fiber amplifier light source for multichannel WDM applications. IEEE Photonic. Tech. L., 5(12): 1458-1461.
   CrossRef    
2. Connelly, M.J., D.I. Forsyth and I. Evans, 2005. Spectrum-sliced source noise reduction using a semiconductor optical amplifier. Proceedings of the IASTED International Conference on Optical Communications Systems and Networks, as part of the 5th IASTED International Multi-Conference on Wireless and Optical Communications. Banff, Alberta, Canada, pp: 25-28.
   
3. Kim, S.J., J.H. Han, J.S. Lee and C.S. Park, 1999. Intensity noise suppression in spectrum-sliced incoherent light communication systems using a gain-saturated semiconductor optical amplifier. IEEE Photonic. Tech. L., 11(8): 1042-1044.
   CrossRef    
4. Lee, S.W., H.W. Song, M.Y. Jung and S.H. Kim, 2011. Wide tuning range wavelength-swept laser with a single SOA at 1020 nm for ultrahigh resolution Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography. Opt. Express, 19(22): 21227-21237.
   CrossRef    PMid:22108975    
5. McCoy, A.D., P. Horak, B.C. Thomsen, M. Ibsen and D.J. Richardson, 2005. Noise suppression of incoherent light using a gain-saturated SOA: Implications for spectrum-sliced WDM systems. J. Lightwave Technol., 23(8): 2399-2409.
   CrossRef    
6. Pendock, G.H. and D.D. Sampson, 1996. Transmission performance of high bit rate spectrum-sliced WDM systems. J. Lightwave Technol., 14(10): 2141-2148.
   CrossRef    
7. Shin, S., U. Sharma, H. Tu, W. Jung and S.A. Boppart, 2010. Characterization and analysis of relative intensity noise in broadband optical sources for optical coherence tomography. IEEE Photonic. Tech. L., 22(14): 1057-1059.
   CrossRef    PMid:22090794 PMCid:PMC3214975    
8. Ymatoya, T., F. Koyama and K. Iga, 2000. Noise suppression and intensity modulation using gain-saturated semiconductor optical amplifier. Proceeding of Optical Amplifiers and their Applications (OAA2000). Quebec, Canada, pp: 72-74.
   
9. Zabinski, P., B. Gilbert and E. Daniel, 2013. Coming challenges with terabit-per-second data communication. IEEE Circuits Syst. Mag., 13(3): 10-20.
   CrossRef    

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.