Design analysis and applications of all-optical multifunctional logic using a semiconductor optical amplifier-based polarization rotation switch

Abstract

In this communication, a new semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-based module for multi-valued logic units using the cross-polarization modulation effect is proposed and analyzed. The design is simple and compact, consisting of only three SOAs and a few passive optical elements. SOAs have very low switching power (< 1mW), and are very small (< 1 mm) and integrable into modern optical integrated circuits. Being multifunctional, the design is versatile; it can function as a demultiplexer, comparator, half adder, half subtractor, and as basic (OR, AND), universal (NOR, NAND), XOR, and XNOR logic gates. This design follows a tree architecture, operates at very high speed (~ 100Gbit/s), and provides a good Q factor (30 dB or more). The corresponding bit error rate (BER) is very low (~ 10–24). In this work, a relative eye opening as large as 90.4% is calculated. The variations in Q and BER with noise and control power are also investigated.