Simultaneous 3R Regeneration of 4 $\times$ 40-Gbit/s WDM Signals in a Single Fiber

We experimentally demonstrate simultaneous 3R regeneration of 4 $\times$ 40-Gbit/s WDM channels, which is based on the four-wave mixing (FWM) in a single dispersion-shifted fiber. The multichannel 3R regeneration performance is validated by bit-error rate (BER) measurements. Receiver powers at a BER of $10^{-9}$ are improved by 5.2 dB, 4.8 dB, 3.3 dB, and 3.9 dB for the four WDM channels, respectively. Mitigation of the interchannel nonlinearities is achieved mainly through an interchannel 0.5-bit slot time delay, which is introduced by differential group delay. Bidirectional propagation and polarization multiplexing are also applied to relieve the interchannel FWM.