An all-optical circular shifting register based on the cross-gain modulation of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA), a key component for future optical computers and signal processing, is experimentally demonstrated. The ideal schemes of left and right circular shifting registers are proposed. On the basis of the scheme, a left circular shifting register that can shift up to three times has been experimentally demonstrated using two SOAs and verified by VPI simulation.

All-optical Data Extraction Based on Optical Logic GatesAll-optical data extraction, one of the key technologies for all-optical computing and optical communication to perform add-drop, packet switching, and data reset, etc., is experimentally demonstrated by using cross-gain modulation (XGM) of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Also, all-optical data extraction based on numerical simulation is performed by using the VPI simulation tool. In this paper, the suggested optical system based on SOAs shows the potential for high speed, and highly integrable and low power optical data computing.