Towards High Speed of All-Optical Logic and Switches Using Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

All-optical logic gate and switch are the key elements for ultrafast (>100 Gbit/s) signal processing in highspeed optical networks. Recent progress and related patents on all-optical logic gates based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) are reviewed and optical switches with various configurations are discussed. The frequency-domain analysis of the turbo-switch (TS) incorporating two cascading SOAs is presented in detail to explore its ultimate operation bandwidth. The results show that the 3dB bandwidth of the TS is ~300 GHz, which can be a good candidate for ultrafast all-optical switches.