Prior art optical waveguide components provide, in the instance of an insufficient signal improvement, simple signal copies and are only suited for relatively low data bit rates and few applications. The inventive optical waveguide component, which can be configured, in particular, as a saturable semiconducting optical amplifier (SOA), and its particularly long overall length (L) in the range of ten to one hundred times that of common saturation lengths enable the processing of bit rates of up to 100 Gibit/s since it combines the principles of cross-gain modulation and of four-wave mixing and disposes of switching behavior that is dependent on a threshold value. To this end, all input and carrier signals (CONTROL-IN, PCS, CW-IN) are selected in the different wavelengths thereof ( lambda 1, lambda 2) in such a manner that they undergo the same amplification. When the inventive optical waveguide component is configured, according to the invention, as a fast equalizer (FEQ), the data signal (DATA-IN) is situated on the primary carrier signal (PCS). When configured as a fast decision element (FDE), the data signal (DATA-IN) and a temporally superimposed clock signal (CLS) are involved. The fast decision element can be used as a fast demultiplexer (FDEMUX) due to an additional mask signal (MS) or by integrating inside a fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer device (FMZI) with a first and second data signal (DATA-IN1, DATA-IN2), the fast decision element can execute all the functions thereof, especially logic and switch-over functions, also for ultra-high bit rates (bmax) under simultaneous optimal 3R pulse regeneration.
展开▼
