Modulation Characteristics of a Directly Modulated Super Luminescent Diode Followed by a Gain-Saturated Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

摘要

A directly modulated LED or SLD (Super lumi- nescent diode) is attractive for low-cost lightwave systems such as access networks. This letter experimentally studies a directly modulated SLD followed by a gain-saturated semiconductor op- tical amplifier (SOA), and shows that the modulation rate is expanded in effect by the use of the gain-saturated SOA. This results from the shortened response time of the SLD due to the ASE light from the SOA and a level-equalizing effect in the gain- saturated SOA.