Abstract

Electroabsorption modulators (EAMs) are typically electrically driven to vary the electric field across the device and hence the optical transmission through it. Waveguide EAMs are increasingly being used in optical networks since they can be monolithically integrated with continuous-wave (cw) edge-emitting laser diodes to create low-cost, high-speed optical transmitters. Recent work has also demonstrated optical control of the electrical field across an EAM opening up additional applications such as wavelength conversion [1-2], partial optical regeneration [3], and WDM to TDM conversion [4]. In fact, conventional optical-electrical-optical conversion can perform these tasks, but currently suffers from several disadvantages including high component and packaging costs, large space and power consumption, high complexity, a lack of scalability, and bit rate and format dependence [5]. To overcome some of these limitations, optically-switched EAMs have been proposed, but initial demonstrations have required large optical input powers (on the order of tens of milliwatts) to observe sufficient cross-absorption-modulation [1].

© 2003 Optical Society of America