Frequency-dependent electric dc power consumption model including quantum-conversion efficiencies in ultrafast...

Based on nine up-to-date types of semiconductor-optical-amplifier (SOA) samples, we devised a power-consumption model of SOA-based all-optical gates as a tool to develop faster and more efficient OTDM systems for bitrates from 10 to 160 Gb/s and those over 160 Gb/s. The conventional effect of a continuous wave (cw) holding beam was included in the model. Furthermore, in this work we defined three step-wise quantum conversion efficiencies eta(1), eta(2), and eta(3) from current-injected carriers through photons. The dependence of each of the three efficiencies on the SOA-structure was studied. The total efficiency eta(T) observed for the nine SOAs ranged widely from 0.07 to 0.46. The validity of the power-consumption model was verified by systematically measuring the effective carrier recovery rate. According to our model, the power consumption of the best existing SOA-based gate for 160-Gb/s signals is 750 mW, and this increases at a rate approximately proportional to (bitrate)(2), and decreases proportionally to (1/etaT)(2).