Experimental research on 10 Gb/s all-optical logic gates with return-to-zero data in high nonlinear fiber

A novel scheme to realize all-optical logic gates is proposed bases on nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) in high nonlinear fiber (HNLF). Two optical signals A and B with return-to-zero data format are injected into the HNLF together with a continuous wave C. Thanks to the optical power variation in HNLF, nonlinear birefringence will be induced between the two polarization axes. Thus it results in the nonlinear polarization rotation of the lightwave in the HNLF. Both the optical signal and continuous wave are filtered out at the output of HNLF using optical band-pass filter. By adjusting the optical power and polarization of the optical signal as well as the polarization of the polarizer with respect to the polarization of optical signal/continuous wave, multiple all-optical logic gates can be realized. Theoretical analysis of the simultaneously realization of the multiple optical logic gates based on NPR in HNLF is provided. And we demonstrated the feasibility of the scheme by realizing all optical “and”, “not”, “nxor”, “A̅ · B”, “A · B̅ ”, half-adder and half-subtracter at 10Gb/s operation.