Effects of group velocity dispersion on self/cross phase modulation in a nonlinear Sagnac interferometer switch

Time-resolved numerical analysis of a nonlinear Sagnac interferometer switch (NSIS) reveals that the combined effects of group velocity dispersion (GVD), self phase modulation, cross phase modulation, and pump-probe walk-off seriously degrade switching performance when the soliton number N of the pump pulse is under 5. This means that the peak power of short pump pulses cannot be reduced to less than the critical value at N>5 to prevent the effect of GVD. This restriction is more severe for pump pulses in the anomalous dispersion region than for those in the normal dispersion region because of higher-order soliton compression. System designs for time-division demultiplexers that use NSISs and picosecond pump pulses generated by a laser-diode coupled to erbium-doped fiber amplifiers are discussed. It is found that 1:32 demultiplexing from 160 to 5 Gb/s and 1:8 demultiplexing from 80 to 10 Gb/s with a switching contrast of more than 60 are possible using diode-laser-pumped 1- and 2-ps pump pulses, respectively.>