Semiconductor optical amplifier

Semiconductor optical amplifiers are optical amplifiers based on semiconductor gain media. They can be used in telecom systems, for example. As bandwidth demand rises, the construction of optical packet-switching nodes targeting optical routers would benefit from fast optical switches.

The basic principal behind optical amplification is stimulated emission. In order to have stimulated emission, population inversion is neede which is created by electrical bias in SOA.

The gain and noise in these are modelled by the .

These devices are an ideal in-line amplifier.

Recent designs include anti-reflective coatings and tilted waveguide and . Without the need to first convert it to an electrical signal, the optical amplifiers are now used instead of repeaters. As we know, there are several types of optical amplifiers. Amphotonix specialises in the design and manufacture of advanced III-V photonic semiconductor optical amplifiers for next generation optical networks and in the integration of passive waveguiding technologies with custom- designed active semiconductor devices. This paper will not in detail describe the . As telecommunication aims to shorten distances, long . SOA is an important component for optical communication systems.

It has applications as in-line amplifiers and as functional devices in evolving optical networks. The functional applications of . A semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) can be used in an array of applications such as wavelength conversion, signal regeneration, pulse reshaping and power limiting. Because it is capable of high integration and volume manufacturing, it has been very popular when operations demand space and power efficiency. It is designed for transmitter applications to increase optical launch power to compensate for the loss of other optical devices.

It is sensitive to temperature and input optical frequency. Non-resonant traveling-wave amplifiers . The dynamics of carriers in groun excite and continuum states and wetting layer are considered in this model. The effects of the second excited state (ES2) inclusion are investigated for the first time, to the best of . We demonstrate the first few-mode semiconductor optical amplifier (FM SOA) that supports up to four waveguide modes.

We show that each of the modes are confined to the waveguide, overlapping the quantum wells with approximately the same amount, leading to equalized gain for each of the four waveguide modes.