Efficient and Validated Time Domain Numerical Modeling of Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs) and SOA-based Circuits

Abstract

Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) have been extensively used in a wealth of tele‐ com and datacom applications as a powerful building block that features large optical gain, all-optical gating function, fast response, and ease of integration with other func‐ tional semiconductor devices. As fabrication technologies are steadily maturing toward enhanced yield, SOAs are foreseen to play a pivotal role in complex photonics integrated circuits (PICs) of the near future. From a design standpoint, accurate numerical modeling of SOA devices is required toward optimizing PICs response from a system perspective, while enhanced circuit complexity calls for efficient solvers. In this book chapter, we present established experimentally validated SOA numerical modeling techniques and a gain parameterization procedure applicable to a wide range of SOA devices. Moreover, we describe multigrid concepts and implicit schemes that have been only recently pre‐ sented to SOA modeling, enabling adaptive time stepping at the SOA output, with dense sampling at transient phenomena during the gain recovery and scarce sampling during the steady-state response. Overall, a holistic simulation methodology approach along with recent research trends are described, aiming to form the basis of further develop‐ ments in SOA modeling.