Experimental Demonstration of an All Optical Flip Flop Memory

We present an experimental demonstration of an all optical memory consisting of a coupled system of a semiconductor optical amplifier and a super continuum generator operating in the 1500 nm range. The circuit is designed as a fiber ring consisting of the semiconductor amplifier, a polarization beam splitter, a digital polarization controller, a polarization maintaining fiber and a super continuum generator in series. The P or the S output of the beam splitter is sent to an optical spectrum analyzer to measure the output while the other output completes the ring. The linear polarization is adjusted with a digital polarization controller. The stable state consists of two modes, where the mode amplitude represents the state. Mode 1 corresponds to 1530 nanometers and mode 2 corresponds to 1550 nanometers. A contrast ratio between an "on" and "off" state is measured for each mode. The stable states of the flip flop are [mode1- ON, mode2- ON], [mode 1-ON, mode 2-OFF], [mode1-OFF, mode 2-ON] and [mode 1-OFF, mode 2-OFF] and are controlled by the polarization. We shall present the state diagram for these four states of the flip flop, the effect of power on the system, the effect of the SOA drive current, and the effect of polarization fluctuations.