Abstract

During the last two decades, much research has been conducted concerning all-optical switching, motivated by the realization that electronic switching has speed limitations. The highest data rate switching experiments to date have used a nonlinear optical loop mirror with a semiconductor laser amplifier as the nonlinear medium.^1–3 In this paper, we present the first demonstration, we believe, of all-optical switching using a semiconductor nonlinearity in a single arm interferometer (SAI).⁴ The SAI is insensitive to long-lived nonlinearities and, with a minor modification,⁵ allows for generalized logic functions without the use of an additional control stream.

© 1996 Optical Society of America