Abstract: All-optical digital logic elementary circuits are the building blocks of many important computational operations in future high-speed all-optical networks and computing systems. Multifunctional and reconfigurable logic units are essential in this respect. Employing the demodulation properties of delay interferometers for input differential phase shift keying signals and the gain saturation effect in two parallel semiconductor optical amplifiers, a novel design of 40 Gbit/s reconfigurable all-optical dual-directional half-subtractor is proposed and demonstrated. All output logic results show that the scheme achieves over 11=dB extinction ratio, clear and wide open eye diagram, as well as low polarization dependence (< 1 dB), without using any additional input light beam. The scheme may provide a promising candidate for future ultrafast all-optical signal processing applications.

Key words: nonlinear optics, optical communications devices, semiconductor optical amplifier