Modelling of NOLM Demultiplexers Employing Optical Soliton Control Pulse.pdfVIP

Micowave and Optical Technology Letters, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1999. pp. 205-208 Modelling of NOLM Demultiplexers Employing Optical Soliton Control Pulse Z. Ghassemlooy, C. Y. Cheung A. K. Ray Electronics Research Group, School of Engineering, Sheffield Hallam university, Pond St., Sheffield, S1 1WB, UK E-mail: z.f.ghassemlooy@shu.ac.uk ABSTRACT: An optical soliton pulse may be used as a control signal in non-linear optical loop mirror demultiplexers in order to reduce timing-jitter noise and cross-talk. A mathematical model for calculating the width of the soliton switching window and optimizing critical parameters such as walk-off time and pulse width has been presented, and its accuracy is verified by solving the non- linear Schrodinger equation. Key word: Semiconductor laser amplifier, optical switching, soliton, optical time division demultiplexer, optical loop mirrors. 1- INTRODUCTION The non-linear optical loop mirror (NOLM) demultiplexer is a promising configuration for achieving all-optical time division demultiplexing because of its high operating speed [1]. Channel demultiplexing is realised by the phase difference between the clockwise (CW) and counter-clockwise (CCW) signal pulses propagating within the fibre loop, see Figure 1. In ultra-high speed systems, there are two major problems: 1) difficulty in achieving complete switching of the signal pulses; and 2) timing jitter between the copropagating control and signal pulses. The latter is reduced to a certain extent by introduction of walk-off time Tw between the control and signal pulses. This results in a square switching window shape, with a width of TwL , where L is the fibre loop le