Simple guidelines for optimizing power splitter asymmetries in SOA-based Mach-Zehnder wavelength converters

摘要

We demonstrate that significant performance penalties will occur in SOA-based Mach-Zehnder wavelength converters when design optimization is limited solely to phase and current biases. We present simple design rules to optimize the optical power splitter asymmetries and validate them using pseudo-random code in a comprehensive numerical model. Dramatic improvements in eye margin and extinction are confirmed.