We introduce a phenomenological model to describe polarization-sensitive SOAs which is composed of a partly linear polarizer, a retarder, and a polarization independent amplifier. It shows that any input optical vector of signal will first be partly linearly polarized, then rotate around S1-axis of the Poincaré sphere for θ, and finally be amplified equably. Then we investigate and experimentally demonstrate the relationship between polarization rotation (PR) and mode gains. We further obtain two necessary conditions for the valuable orthogonal polarization rotation (OPR), and then perform a power-equalized OPR by optical-electric synchronous control of the SOA. The polarization duration time is ~10 ns which is applicable to high-speed polarization state generation.

Date Published: 11 November 2008
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 7134, Passive Components and Fiber-based Devices V, 71340Y (11 November 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.803068

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7134:
Passive Components and Fiber-based Devices V
Ming-Jun Li; Ping Shum; Ian H. White; Xingkun Wu, Editor(s)