Abstract

For some years now semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) have been used as nonlinear elements in interferometer based all-optical switches (for a recent review see [1]). There are many forms of nonlinear interferometric all-optical switch but the commonest form is some variation of the nonlinear optical loop mirror. All of these switches work by dividing the input field into two and applying a different phase shift to the two fields before re-combining them at the output coupler. The role played by SOAs in these switches is to supply the differential phase shift as the result of the presence of an optical control pulse.

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