SOA Fiber Ring Laser-Based Three-State Optical Memory

By exploiting three coupled semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) fiber ring lasers, a compact, integratable, and polarization-independent three-state all-optical memory is demonstrated, with 40-dB extinction ratio for each state. Dynamic flip-flop operation between states is also demonstrated with switching pulse energy of 13.6 nJ. Due to the broad bandwidth of SOA gain spectrum, the wavelength range of set pulses is large. Finally, the transition behavior of state switching is investigated.