Ultra-short optical pulse shaping using semiconductor optical amplifier

Optical ultra-short pulse compression and amplification using semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is presented. Using pump-probe pulse configuration, we present an SOA model which includes the nonlinear effects such as, spectral hole burning (SHB), carrier heating (CH), two-photon absorption (TPA) and group velocity dispersion (GVD) taking into account gain spectrum effect. Then by adjusting time delay between the pump pulse and probe pulse we use the model for simultaneous compression and amplification of probe pulse. We also analyze the four wave mixing (FWM) signal during pulse compression process. It is shown that dispersive effect of GVD on output probe pulse becomes more important for larger cavity length and probe-pump pulses relative time delays. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.