The OnOff Contrast in an All Optical Switch Based on
Stimulated Raman Scattering in Optical Fibers1

A. Flores-Rosasa, *, E. A. Kuzinb, B. Ibarra-Escamillab, and J. M. Merlo-Ramírezc

a Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Poza Rica, Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta S/N, Poza Rica, Ver. 93230, México
b Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica y Electronica, Optics Deparment, Luis Enrique Erro 1, Puebla, Pue. 72000, México
c Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Puebla, Vía Atlixcayotl 2301, San Andrés Cholula, Pue, 72800, México

*e-mail: arielf@nucleares.unam.mx

Received February 14, 2012; published online July 9, 2012

Abstract—We present the investigation of the ON–OFF contrast in an optical switch using stimulated Raman
Scattering in optical fibers. The setup consists of a Raman circuit of two fiber stages connected in series with a
spectral filter rejecting the signal inserted between them. The stage 1 works as saturated amplifier, in this stage
the pump pulses are saturated when pump and signal are launched to the input or travel through the fiber without
saturation when pump only is launched at the input. The stage 2 works as a Raman amplifier with amplification
depending on the pump power entering from the first stage. When pump only is launched at the input enter to
the second stage without saturation and amplifies the signal entering this stage, strong signal pulses appear at
the output; when pump and signal are launched to the input the pump is saturated in the first stage and the filter
rejected the amplified signal, so that only low power pump enters the second stage and no signal pulses appear
at the output. We use 2 ns pump pulses at 1528 nm and continuous-wave signal at 1620nm. In the first stage of
Raman circuit, we use both fibers with normal and anomalous dispersion. In fibers with anomalous dispersion,
pump saturation is affected by modulation instability. We find that the contrast may be improved using fibers
with normal and anomalous dispersion connected in series in the first stage, provided there is appropriate selec-
tion of their lengths. The best achieved contrast was 15 dB at 6 W pump peak power.

DOI: 10.1134/S1054660X12080099

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