Photonic Sensors
An analytical study on bistability of Fabry-Perot semiconductor optical amplifiers
Gang Wang, Shuqiang Chen, Huajun Yang
Abstract
Abstract Optical bistabilities have been considered to be useful for sensor applications. As a typical nonlinear device, Fabry-Perot semiconductor optical amplifiers (FPSOAs) exhibit bistability under certain conditions. In this paper, the bistable characteristics in FPSOAs are investigated theoretically. Based on Adams’s relationship between the incident optical intensity I in and the z -independent average intracavity intensity I av , an analytical expression of the bistable loop width in SOAs is derived. Numerical simulations confirm the accuracy of the analytical result.