Dynamic power and chirp measurements of amplified 19 ps pulses in traveling-wave and reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers using a linear pulse characterization technique

The dynamic chirp and power of amplified pulses in semiconductor optical amplifiers is of importance in the application of these devices as conventional amplifiers and in optical signal processing. Non-linear measurement techniques are appropriate for pulsewidths less than 5 ps but have low sensitivity for wider pulsewidths commonly present in moderate bit rate optical systems. Typical measurements of chirp and power of 20 GHz repetition rate amplified 19 ps pulsewidth pulses in traveling-wave and reflective SOAs are obtained using a linear characterization technique based on small-signal sinusoidal modulation at half the pulse stream repetition rate and post-processing of the resulting optical spectrums. The results show that the amplified pulse dynamic power and chirp can have a complex structure and thereby pulse spectrum, which in turn can influence pulse propagation in optical fiber.