High-Speed Pulse Detection Room-Temperature Optical Nonlinearities forGaInAs/AlInAs and GaAlInAs/AlInAs Multiple Quantum Wells and Integrated Mirror Etalon at 1.3 Micrometers

摘要

As a result of the advances in optical fiber communication technology, the dreamof a high bit rate telecommunication system now becomes possible. However, the performance of optical fiber communication systems is limited due to the lack of a high speed signal processor to process the information. At present, the processing speed of an optical fiber communications system is determined by the speed of an electronic logic gate. Currently, the switching times of an electronic transistor is usually in 0.1 to 1 ns range and this switching speed is already approaching some of its fundamental limits. On the other hand, optical switching devices have been shown exhibit sub-picosecond switching speeds, so photonic processing is an alternative technology of processing signals in optical fiber communications systems. Photonic processing also has the potential to avoid the optical-electronic conversion which is used now in the telecommunication system. The optical time-division multiplexing technique is an extension of the well-known electronic multiplexing technique. In an optical time-division multiplexing system, a high bit-rate data stream is constructed directly by time-multiplexing several lower bit-rate signals. Similarly, at the receiver end of the system, the very high bit rate optical signal is demultiplexed to several lower bit-rate optical signals before detection and conversion to the electronic domain.