Semiconductor laser optical amplifiers in switching and distribution networks

Applications of semiconductor laser optical amplifiers in coherent multichannel systems are investigated with respect to the switching and distribution of many channels to a large number of customers. All-optical switching of data signals is achieved with the optical amplifier operating as a frequency converter. Measurements of the conversion efficiency and a transmission experiment with a 1500 GHz conversion range are described. Possible applications are all-optical 'multipoint to point' and 'point to multipoint' switching. Optical amplifiers may also be useful in multichannel distribution networks to compensate for combining and splitting losses. The authors discuss an example demonstrating how optical amplifiers increase the number of customers in a coherent multichannel distribution system.