Simulation of all-optical demultiplexing utilizing two-photon absorption in semiconductor devices for high-speed OTDM networks

The performance of a two-photon absorption (TPA) based demultiplexer in an OTDM communication system is modeled. The demultiplexer is evaluated by comparing the electrical BER of the demultiplexed and detected channel to the optical BER of the signal before the demultiplexer. An error-free demultiplexing of a 250 Gbit/s signal (25 /spl times/ 10 Gbit/s channels) is shown, using a 30:1 control-to-signal peak power ratio, with a TPA device with a bandwidth of 20 GHz should be possible. The device that is fabricated for TPA is a GaAs/AlAs PIN microcavity photodetector grown on a GaAs substrate.