SLOW AND FAST LIGHTNEXT TERM IN QUANTUM DOT BASED SEMICONDUCTOR OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS

Recent progress in the field of quantum dot/dash based semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) for previous termslow and fast lightnext term is discussed. Room temperature previous termfast lightnext term has been obtained in InAs/InP QDash based SOAs by means of coherent population oscillation and four wave mixing (FWM) effects. Typical optical delays amount to 55 ps at 2 GHz. Growth optimization of the QDashes allowed us to achieve high modal gain, leading to very similar performances, e.g. gain and FWM efficiency, to those of a bulk SOA. A novel approach based on linear spectrograms is also introduced to measure the phase shift induced by wave mixing in an SOA.