Design and analysis of digital to analog converter (DAC) using quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifier

Abstract Digital to analog converter (DAC) based on amplifying action of quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifier is designed and performance is investigated numerically using Matlab. The performance of the DAC is analyzed by calculating resolution or step size (1.001 mW), dynamic range (11.762 dB), relative output (RO), desired relative output (DRO), absolute error (0.15 %) etc. The dynamic range values offer nearly ideal behavior. The effect of amplified spontaneous emission noise is also investigated on dynamic range and absolute error. An error as low as 0.5 % is achieved at operating speed more than 4 Tb/s. Moreover, the design is simple and uses only four QDSOAs.