Method of operating a reconfigurable and integrable optical logic gate based on a single SOA

摘要

An optical logic gate (10) comprising inputs (12) for optical signals on which to perform a chosen logical operation. An SOA (11) element receives such input signals to be piloted thereby in saturation and its output is connected to at least one optical filter (14, 15, 16) that filters components of signals output from the SOA and which represent a desired logical result of the signals input at the gate so that at the output (13) of the filter there is an optical signal as the result of the desired logical operation. A probe signal (17) can also be provided. An appropriate combination of power of the input, power and probe signal wavelength and central wavelength of the filter allows obtaining a plurality of logic functions such as NOR, NOT, inverted XOR, AND, OR.