An Electroabsorption Modulator Monolithically Integrated with a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier and a Dual-Waveguide Spot-Size Converter

A semiconductor optical amplifier and electroabsorption modulator monolithically integrated with a spotsize converter input and output is fabricated by means of selective area growth,quantum well intermixing,and asymmetric twin waveguide technology. A 1550-1600nm lossless operation with a high DC extinction ratio of 25dB and more than 10GHz 3dB bandwidth are successfully achieved. The output beam divergence angles of the device in the horizontal and vertical directions are as small as 7.3°× 18.0°, respectively, resulting in a 3.0dB coupling loss with a cleaved single-mode optical fiber.

Wide-Band Polarization-Independent Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Gate with Tensile-Strained Quasi-Bulk InGaAs

A semiconductor optical amplifier gate based on tensile-strained quasi-bulk InGaAs is developed. At injection current of 80mA,a 3dB optical bandwidth of more than 85nm is achieved due to dominant band-filling effect.Moreover, the most important is that very low polarization dependence of gain (＜0. 7dB),fiber-to-fiber lossless operation current (70～90mA) and a high extinction ratio (＞50dB) are simultaneously obtained over this wide 3dB optical bandwidth (1520～1609nm) which nearly covers the spectral region of the whole C band (1525～1565nm)and the whole L band (1570～ 1610nm). The gating time is also improved by decreasing carrier lifetime. The wideband polarization-insensitive SOA-gate is promising for use in future dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) communication systems.

Design of Tensile Strained InGaAsP/InGaAsP MQW for 1.55μmpolarization Indepent Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

The theoretical optimization of tensile strained InGaAsP/InGaAsP MQW for 1.5μm window polarization-independent semiconductor optical amplifier is reported. The valence-band structure of the MQw is calculated by using K·P method, in which 6×6 Luttinger effective-mass Hamiltonian is taken into account. LThe polarization dependent optical gain is calculated with various well width, strain, and carrier density.

A novel polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier structure with large 3dB bandwidth

A novel approach to achieving a polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier is presented. The active layer consists of graded tensile strained bulk-like structure. which can not only enhance TM mode material gain and further realize polarization-insensitivity, but also get a large 3dB bandwidth due to different strain introduced into the active layer. 3dB bandwidth more than 40nm. 65nm has been obtained in die experiment and theory, respectively. The characteristics of such polarization insensitive structure have been analyzed, The influence of the amount of strain and of the thickness of strain layer on the polarization insensitivity has been discussed.

Design of Photonic Crystal Semiconductor Optical Amplifier With Polarization Independence

Slow-light effects in photonic crystal (PC) waveguides can enhance light-mater interaction near the photonic band edge, which can be used to design a short cavity length semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). In this paper, a novel SOA based on slow-light effects in PC waveguides (PCSOA) is presented. To realize the amplification of the optical signal with polarization independence, a PCSOA is designed with a compensated structure. The cascaded structure leads to a balanced amplification to the TE and TM polarized light.

Generation of 10 GHz, 1.9 ps optical pulse train using semiconductor optical amplifier and silica-based highly nonlinear fiber

We propose a simple approach to generate a high quality 10 GHz 1.9 ps optical pulse train using a semiconductor optical amplifier and silica-based highly nonlinear fiber. An optical pulse generator based on our proposed scheme is easy to set up with commercially available optical components. A 10 GHz, 1.9 ps optical pulse train is obtained with timing jitter as low as 60 fs over the frequency range 10 Hz-1 MHz. With a wavelength tunable CW laser, a wide wavelength tunable span can be achieved over the entire C band. The proposed optical pulse generator also can operate at different repetition rates from 3 to 10 GHz.

Generation of optimized wavelength-tunable optical pulse from an uncooled gain-switched Fabry-Perot semiconductor laser using optical amplifier as external light injection

We present a novel system design that can generate the optimized wavelength-tunable optical pulse streams from an uncooled gain-switched Fabry-Perot semiconductor laser using an optical amplifier as external light source. The timing jitter of gain-switched laser has been reduced from about 3 ps to 600 fs and the pulse width has been optimized by using our system. The stability of the system was also experimentally investigated. Our results show that an uncooled gain-switched FP laser system can feasibly produce the stable optical pulse trains with pulse width of 18 ps at the repetition frequency of 5 GHz during 7 h continuous working. We respectively proved the system feasibility under 1 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz operation. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Composite electrode for unitized regenerative proton exchange membrane fuel cell with improved cycle life

To improve the cycle life of unitized regenerative fuel cells (URFCs), an electrode with a composite structure has been developed. The cycle life and polarization curves for both fuel cell and electrolysis modes of URFC operation were investigated. The cycle life of URFCs was improved considerably and the performance was fairly constant during 25 cycles, which illustrates that the composite electrode is effective in sustaining the cyclic performance of URFCs. It shows the URFCs with such an electrode structure are promising for practical applications. (C) 2004 The Electrochemical Society.