Equivalent Circuit Elements Influence on the Performance of Electro-Optical Space Switches Based on Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

The electro-optical dynamic operation and performance of space switches based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) is analyzed through computational simulations of its electric equivalent circuit. The employed circuit is well established in the literature and allows the emulation of the device behavior under several operational condition, permitting the individual impact evaluation of each SOA element in its overall performance according with the chosen characterization metrics. The results show a trade-off between the switching commutation rate and guard-time, evidencing the necessity of a careful design to achieve the desired performance, confirming previous experimental results.