All-optical binary full adder using logic operations based on the nonlinear properties of a semiconductor optical amplifier

Abstract

We propose a new and potentially integrable scheme for the realization of an all-optical binary full adder employing two XOR gates, two AND gates, and one OR gate. The XOR gate is realized using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based on a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The AND and OR gates are based on the nonlinear properties of a semiconductor optical amplifier. The proposed scheme is driven by two input data streams and a carry bit from the previous less-significant bit order position. In our proposed design, we achieve extinction ratios for Sum and Carry output signals of 10 dB and 12 dB respectively. Successful operation of the system is demonstrated at 10 Gb/s with return-to-zero modulated signals.