160 Gb/s XOR Gate Using Bulk SOA Turbo-Switched Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

A modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer is proposed to carry out photonic XOR operation between optical data streams. It consists of the synthesis of a differential scheme and the recently demonstrated turbo-switch. Simulations utilizing a sophisticated bulk semiconductor optical amplifier dynamical model indicate practically error-free operation at 160 Gb/s. A comparison of the proposed structure with a state-of-the-art XOR gate shows outperformance of the former in terms of Q-factor, thus positioning the new device as a very attractive alternative design for logic XOR functionality. Application as ultra-fast processing element on forthcoming optical telecommunication networks is foreseen.