High repetition rate optical switch using an electroabsorption modulator in TOAD configuration

A novel optical switch featured with high repetition rate, short switching window width, and high contrast ratio is proposed and demonstrated for the first time by placing an electroabsorption modulator (EAM) in a terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer (TOAD) configuration. The feasibility and main characteristics of the switch are investigated by numerical simulations and experiments. With this EAM-based TOAD, an error-free return-to-zero signal wavelength conversion with 0.62 dB power penalty at 20 Gbit/s is demonstrated.