Ultrafast wavelength conversion using semiconductor laser amplifiers

Describes conversion using two techniques. (1) 20 nm conversion using highly nondegenerate four-wave mixing (HNDFWM) in a travelling wave semiconductor optical amplifier. This technique has the potential for very high speed operation (up to Tbit/s), is transparent to modulation format and allows continuous tuning of the input and output wavelengths over the amplifier gain bandwidth. (2) 17 nm wavelength conversion using the technique of gain saturation in a DFB laser. This technique, while more restricted in speed and less versatile than the first method, has the potential for higher conversion efficiency and simpler implementation