Theoretical estimation of the cascadability of wavelength converters based on cross-gain modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers

Summary form only given. Although the cascadability of several all-optical wavelength converters (AOWC) will be an important issue, to our knowledge there is only one study dealing with the cascadability of more than two AOWCs based on cross-gain modulation (XGM) in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). In this study, only signal characteristics were addressed. However, investigations of the cascadability require analysis of signal as well as noise characteristics, because both determine the resulting bit error rate (BER). In this paper, the transmission of both the input signal and noise are investigated analytically. This is used to estimate the BER performance and the cascadability of AOWCs based on XGM at 2.5 Gbits/s. The evaluation is based on the theory used to calculate the output probe power, as a function of the input powers, and the wavelengths.