A polarization multiplexing technique to mitigate WDM crosstalk in SOAs

Abstract
Crosstalk arising from gain saturation effects in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA's) causes major system impairments in wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) transmission of multiple optical channels. We propose a novel polarization multiplexing technique to mitigate the gain saturation effects in SOA's and demonstrate error-free WDM transmission over a 45 km metro-like fiber link for a two-channel case using a SOA.