Comparison of Sagnac and Mach-Zehnder ultrafast all-optical interferometric switches based on a semiconductor resonant optical nonlinearity

K I Kang; T G Chang; I Glesk; P R Prucnal

doi:10.1364/AO.35.000417

Comparison of Sagnac and Mach-Zehnder ultrafast all-optical interferometric switches based on a semiconductor resonant optical nonlinearity

Appl Opt. 1996 Jan 20;35(3):417-26. doi: 10.1364/AO.35.000417.

Authors

K I Kang, T G Chang, I Glesk, P R Prucnal

PMID: 21069026
DOI: 10.1364/AO.35.000417

Abstract

We present a theoretical analysis of recently demonstrated ultrafast all-optical interferometric switching devices (based on Sagnac and Mach-Zehnder interferometers) that use a large optical nonlinearity in a resonant regime. These devices achieve ~10-ps switching windows and do not require high-energy optical control pulses. We theoretically analyze and compare one Sagnac and two Mach-Zehnder switching configurations.