Strong picosecond optical pulse propagation in semiconductor optical amplifiers at transparency

The propagation of strong picosecond optical pulses in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) is investigated numerically by taking into account carrier heating, spectral hole-burning, and two-photon absorption, as well as ultrafast nonlinear refraction. Very good agreement with published experimental results are observed in both the time and frequency domains. It is shown that the effects of two-photon absorption and ultrafast nonlinear refraction are very important in determining the output pulse properties for pulse energy larger than 1 pJ.