Frequency chirping and dynamic characteristics of wavelength-converted optical signals by cross-gain and cross-phase modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers

For all optical networks using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), it is necessary to use wavelength converters for frequency reuse and wavelength/spatial routing. Wavelength converters based on cross-gain modulation (XGM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) in semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) have some advantages such as high conversion efficiency and insensitivity to polarization of input signals. A large-signal analysis was performed using a time developed TMM to calculate converted optical pulse waveforms and chirping in SOAs by self-consistently solving the pulse propagation equations and rate equation.