Analysis of operating characteristics of TOADs using gain saturation and nonlinear gain in SOAs

Abstract
A numerical study has been undertaken of the operating characteristics of teraherz optical asymmetric demultiplexer (TOAD) devices, taking into account gain saturation and nonlinear gain compression of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) for two modes of operation. Attention is given to the influence of nonlinear gain on the output behaviour and to the relation between the switching threshold energy and the operating parameters of TOAD devices. It is predicted that a switching energy of 0.1 pJ can be achieved in an optimised configuration.