Measurement and analysis of phase noise generated from semiconductor optical amplifiers

The phase noise generated from traveling-wave semiconductor optical amplifiers is measured. It is found that the phase noise is strongly correlated with the intensity noise and has bandwidth of 600 MHz. Phase-noise formulas are derived for semiconductor optical amplifiers to explain such phase-noise characteristics. It is shown that the phase noise is induced by the carrier density fluctuation associated with the intensity noise and the spontaneous carrier recombination. For the coherent heterodyne DPSK system, the phase noise, instead of the intensity noise, is found to be the limiting factor on the number of repeater amplifiers.>