Simultaneous four-wave mixing and cross-gain modulation for implementing an all-optical XNOR logic gate using a single SOA

Abstract

We report on an all-optical XNOR-gate using simultaneous Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) and Cross-Gain Modulation (XGM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). FWM generates the bitwise AND output corresponding to the two input data streams while XGM is used to generate the NOR output. These two outputs are combined using a coupler to obtain the final XNOR output. Error-free operation for RZ data with <2dB power-penalty is reported.