Abstract

The advantages of all optical signal processing for high bit rate systems are increasingly being recognised and have stimulated interest in the demonstration of all-optical switching and logic operations. In particular optical fibres have been used to demonstrate optical switching by nonlinear polarisation rotation^{1−3}, in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration^{4} and through nonlinear coupling^{5}. Optical fibres are preferred as they permit ultrafast switching (the intensity dependent index change, n₂, originates from nonresonant electronic process), have low loss, and can be used to fabricate all fibre devices. Otsuka^{6} has proposed a nonlinear antiresonant ring interferometer for realisation of several optical functional devices. An all optical fibre loop mirror is a guided wave version of this device and has the advantage that it requires no interferometric alignment. Doran et al^{7} have theoretically investigated nonlinear properties of this device and in this paper we report first experimental demonstration of the nonlinear response of such a device.

© 1989 Optical Society of America