160Â Gb/s all-optical AND gate using bulk SOA turbo-switched Mach-Zehnder interferometer

A novel architecture to implement an all-optical AND gate that relies on the use of a bulk semiconductor optical amplifier-based active Mach-Zehnder interferometer and the turbo-switch effect is presented. Its performance is analyzed in terms of relevant physical parameters and its power consumption calculated. Error-free operation at 160 Gb/s is numerically demonstrated, thus becoming the fastest AND gate of its kind. Accurate simulations using a well-tested design suite predict a 2.7 dB improvement in terms of quality factor when compared to a conventional scheme. The performance advantages of the proposed architecture remain when combined with a turbo-switched XOR gate: the resulting all-optical half-adder also operates error-free at 160 Gb/s. Our research work boosts the potential of interferometric turbo-switched photonic structures as ultra-fast all-optical processing elements.