Gain Control of Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Using a Bandpass Filter in a Feedback Loop

The authors present a simple configuration of a gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifier (GC-SOA) based on automatic intensity control of a feedback light generated by amplified spontaneous emission, using a narrow bandwidth thin-film-tunable filter. Experimental results show that the proposed amplifier has good gain clamping characteristics and the feedback light dramatically reduces steady and transient gain variations. The feedback light operates satisfactorily with the channel's add-drop frequency up to 20.9 kHz. We also examined the performance of the GC-SOA by employing the feedback light at different wavelengths.