Overcoming the maximum amplification limit of coherent optical pulses in semiconductor optical amplifiers with time-polarization multiplexing

Abstract

We present a time-polarization multiplexing setup that overcomes the maximum amplification limit of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in the pulsed regime. A coherent optical pulse at the input is equally divided into two, which are independently amplified, and coherently recombined to compose an oversaturation amplified optical pulse at the output. This simple topology, containing an SOA and few extra devices, offers 1.96-dB oversaturation gain in comparison with a single SOA. Furthermore, little experimental complexity and, thus, cost, are required by the proposed topology.