Single and multicast wavelength conversion at 40 Gb/s by means of fast nonlinear polarization switching in an SOA

Author

Contestabile, Giampiero ; Calabretta, Nicola ; Presi, Marco ; Ciaramella, Ernesto

Author_Institution

Scuola Superiore Sant´´Anna, Pisa, Italy

Volume

17

Issue

12

fYear

2005

Firstpage

2652

Lastpage

2654

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate all-optical wavelength conversion of a 40-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero signal by means of nonlinear polarization switching in a single semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Using a highly nonlinear SOA optimized for very fast gain recovery time, we observe no appreciable penalty for the conventional (single) wavelength conversion. We also obtain, for the first time by using this technique, the simultaneous multiconversion to different wavelengths (four on a 200-GHz frequency grid) of an input signal.

Keywords

light polarisation; optical communication equipment; optical modulation; optical switches; optical wavelength conversion; semiconductor optical amplifiers; 200 GHz; 40 Gbit/s; SOA; gain recovery time; multicast wavelength conversion; nonlinear polarization switching; nonreturn-to-zero signal; semiconductor optical amplifier; single wavelength conversion; High speed optical techniques; Nonlinear optics; Optical interferometry; Optical packet switching; Optical polarization; Optical refraction; Optical signal processing; Optical wavelength conversion; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Stimulated emission; All-optical wavelength conversion; multicasting; nonlinear polarization switching (NPS); semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA); wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2005.859146

Filename

1542179