Strong picosecond optical pulse propagation in semiconductor optical amplifiers at transparency

Research was conducted to examine numerically the propagation of strong picosecond optical pulses in semiconductor optical amplifiers by considering carrier heating, two-photon absorption, ultrafast nonlinear refraction and spectral hole-burning. Results are in good agreement with the published experimental measurements in both the time and frequency domains for strong input pulses. Results reveal that the effects of two-photon absorption and ultrafast nonlinear refraction are very important in determining the output pulse properties for pulse energy larger than 1 pJ.