INDEX
Introduction... 6
1 Optical Sampling ... 8
1.1 Optical sampling: applications and motivations... 8
1.2 Optical sampling techniques... 12
1.2.1 Synchronous sampling... 13
1.2.2 Asynchronous sampling... 16
1.2.3 Mixed techniques... 18
2 Nonlinear Optical Effects ... 21
2.1 Fiber nonlinearities ... 21
2.1.1 Self and Cross-Phase Modulation... 22
2.1.2 Four-Wave Mixing ... 24
2.2 Notes on solitonic pulse compression... 30
2.3 Semiconductor Optical Amplifier... 34
2.3.1 Slow and fast dynamics in a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (interband and intraband transitions) ... 37
2.3.2 SOA nonlinearities ... 40
3 Simulations... 43
3.1 Introduction... 43
3.2 Simulations results... 47
4 Quasi-Asynchronous optical sampler experimental results ... 56
4.1 Frequency difference locking issue ... 56
4.2 Sampling of a sinusoidal signal exploiting FWM ... 63
4.3 Sampling of Return-to-Zero signals exploiting XPM-based polarization rotation ... 68
4.4 Sampling of Non-Return-to-Zero signals exploiting XPM-based polarization rotation ... 77
4.5 Sampling of NRZ signals exploiting SOA nonlinearities... 79
4.6 Work in progress... 82
Conclusions... 85
Appendix I ... 88
Appendix II... 91
References... 94
