Transmission characteristics of a semiconductor laser amplifier based optical delay line memory

The transmission characteristics of a semiconductor laser amplifier (SLA) based fibre loop delay line memory has been investigated theoretically and experimentally. Measurements show that the data storage time in an SLA based loop delay line memory may be less than 10 when no optical filtering is employed. The data storage time of such a delay line memory could be increased to more than 100 if a narrow band optical filter is involved within the loop. Theoretical simulations of output signal waveform and extinction ratio of a fibre loop memory are also given, showing good agreement with the experimental results.