Phase noise tolerant wavelength conversion of Nyquist-WDM superchannels using FWM in SOAs

Nyquist-WDM superchannel technology, which involves the combination of several lower data rate optical wavelength carriers (sub-channels), is a suitable technique to increase the spectral efficiency of WDM systems, and satisfy the growing demand for bandwidth in future networks. These superchannels will need to be routed through the optical network as a single entity. This work will present the use of four-wave mixing (FWM) in a semiconductor optical (SOA) to wavelength convert an 896 Gbit/s optical superchannel comprising of 8 × 28 Gbaud 16-QAM. The use of a dual correlated pumping technique ensures that the wavelength conversion process is not limited by phase noise on the optical pumps.