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The operation of an all-optical recirculating shift register implemented with the semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-based ultrafast nonlinear interferometer (UNI) in a counter-propagating, inverting configuration is methodically studied and analyzed. This is achieved by applying an appropriate model for a SOA deployed as the nonlinear element in an interferometric switch driven by ultrafast and strong feedback optical pulses. By means of numerical simulation the impact of the critical functional parameters on the formation of the switching window is thoroughly investigated and assessed enabling to provide useful design rules for their proper selection and combination so as to optimize the specific metric and ensure high performance. The undertaken theoretical treatment can be extended for characterizing other more complex all-optical circuits and subsystems of enhanced functionality that employ this type of shift register as the key building module.

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