Highly Uniform Eight-Channel SOA-Gate Array With High Saturation Output Power and Low Noise Figure

A high-power eight-channel semiconductor optical amplifier gate array was developed for application as an optical switch in broadcast-and-select-type optical packet switching systems. The device exhibited a low polarization-dependent gain (<0.8 dB), a high extinction ratio (>60 dB), a low noise figure (<6.2 dB), and a high saturation output power (> +18.2 dBm) for all eight channels. It also exhibited very high interchannel uniformity of less than 0.3 dB for all characteristics.