Performance analysis and improvement of semiconductor optical amplifier direct modulation with assistance of microring resonator notch filter

摘要

We demonstrate through numerical simulations that a passive single-bus microring resonator (MRR) employed as notch filter enables to directly modulate an ordinary semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) at 10 Gb/s. This data rate constitutes a fourfold increase in the speed that it is possible to modulate the SOA due to its finite differential carrier lifetime. The theoretical analysis unveils how the MRR radius and detuning must be selected so that the MRR-based filtering scheme efficiently overcomes the pattern-dependent impairments incurred by the SOA narrow electrical bandwidth. Moreover, the small-signal analysis conducted to correlate the perturbations in power of the modulated optical signal inserted in the MRR with those at the MRR output confirms the enhancement in the electrical bandwidth of the SOA-MRR combination. Provided that the MRR response is tailored as suggested, which is technologically feasible, the MRR action permits the encoded signal to exhibit at extended data rate a pulse and eye diagram profile of acceptable quality, tolerable amplitude difference indices, an error probability below the forward error correction limit, and a sufficient system net gain for medium-haul transmission in standard single-mode fiber with dispersion compensation. These performance improvements can be beneficial for the direct modulation of standard SOAs. Together with SOAs inherent amplification capability, they can open new perspectives in using these active elements as external modulators in various target applications.