Pulse Break - Up due to Cross - Gain Modulation in an InGaAsP Laser

We report on a cross-gain and cross-phase modulation experiment in an InGaAsP semiconductor optical ampliier. For 150 fs pulses we observe large pulse broadening and pulse break-up resulting in performance limitations for ultrafast switching devices. Introduction: Semiconductor optical ampliiers (SOA's) are key components in high-speed optical communication networks in functions as optical switching 1], wavelength conversion 2] and picosecond optical pulse generation in mode-locked laser diodes 3]. Various experimental techniques like pump-probe or four-wave mixing experiments 4, 2] h a ve been used to investigate nonlinear dynamics on a 150 fs-timescale. However, cross-gain (XGM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) eeects upon the probe pulse shape and the probe pulse spectrum have not been considered there. In this work we report for the rst time on XGM-induced pulse broadening and pulse break-up in the 150 fs-pulse regime.