Slow-light in a vertical-cavity semiconductor optical amplifier.

This paper discusses the effect of slow-light in Vertical-Cavity Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers. A Fabry-Perot model is used to predict the group delay (GD) and GD-bandwidth performance of a VCSOA operated in reflection in the linear regime. It is shown that the GD depends on all cavity parameters while the GDxGD-bandwidth product only depends on the gain. Experimental demonstration with a 1300nm GaInNAs VCSOA is used to validate the model and demonstrate tunable GDs between 25 and 100 ps by varying the VCSOA gain. Experimental distortion of the signals induced by nonlinear effects is also presented.