Active microring optical integrator associated with electroabsorption modulators for high speed low light power loadable and erasable optical memory unit.

We propose and analyze a novel loadable and erasable optical memory unit based on an active microring optical integrator associated with electroabsorption modulators (EAM) on III-V material system. The gain of the active microring is characterized by the two energy band model with amplified spontaneous emission noises taken into account. Based on the light field propagation equation in the active microring waveguide and the transfer function of the EAM-MZI switch, the step function performances of the optical memory under the gain matching condition are discussed for different injection light powers. After that, the memory operation of the novel optical memory unit is analyzed in detail. Simulations show that, the step function response and memory performances are affected by the carrier consumption. However, such influence will be released, and the memory operates well for the low light power injection case. The novel optical memory unit is promising to be cascaded connected and densely integrated for high speed low power optical data stream storage and buffer.