Analysis of optical re-modulation by multistage modeling of RSOA

The time-resolved multistage reservoir model well-known for semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is extended to analyze the behavior of a bulk homogeneous InP-InGaAsP buried heterostructure reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA). Parameters for simulation have been extracted from the experimental RSOA characteristics. We have employed the model to explain the steady-state and re-modulation dynamics in the RSOA. Electrical modulation bandwidth and intermodulation distortion in the RSOA have been derived from the model and close agreement is obtained with the reported data. It is found out that the ripples in the upstream output from the RSOA for incomplete modulation erase of downstream modulated data follow Gaussian distribution, which simplifies the calculation of upstream SNR and bit error rate. It is explained in detail that amplitude ripples in the upstream data can be reduced by judicious choice of optical and electrical parameters of the RSOA. In particular, for an average low downstream power level (<−20 dBm) a good downstream modulation erase factor about 89% and 23 dB extinction ratio in the upstream modulated signal can be achieved.