All-optical picosecond-pulse packet buffer based on four-wave mixing loading and intracavity soliton control

Author

Wang, Lijun ; Agarwal, Anjali ; Su, Yikai ; Kumar, Prem

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL, USA

Volume

38

Issue

6

fYear

2002

fDate

6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

614

Lastpage

619

Abstract

We report an all-optical packet buffer that is based on four-wave mixing loading and intracavity soliton pulse control. The target data packet consisting of picosecond pulses is loaded into the storage-buffer cavity by means of four-wave mixing with the pump pulses and stored at the corresponding idler wavelength. We stabilize the timing and amplitude of the stored idler pulses by applying intracavity all-optical soliton control. This is accomplished by combining the synchronous parametric-gain modulation achieved inside a pulse-pumped nonlinear-optical-loop mirror with the intensity discrimination provided by a nonlinear-amplifying-loop mirror. A 20 Gbit/s-packet pattern is loaded and stored for up to several seconds, corresponding to millions of circulations of the packet within the buffer

Keywords

Fabry-Perot resonators; high-speed optical techniques; multiwave mixing; optical modulation; optical parametric amplifiers; optical solitons; packet switching; photonic switching systems; wavelength division multiplexing; 20 Gbit/s; all-optical packet buffer; buffer memories; four-wave mixing loading; idler wavelength; intensity discrimination; intracavity soliton pulse control; nonlinear Fabry-Perot cavity; nonlinear-amplifying-loop mirror; optical fiber communication; optical parametric amplifiers; picosecond-pulse packet buffer; pulse-pumped nonlinear-optical-loop mirror; storage-buffer cavity; synchronous parametric-gain modulation; Fiber nonlinear optics; Four-wave mixing; Mirrors; Nonlinear optics; Optical buffering; Optical mixing; Optical packet switching; Optical solitons; Pulse modulation; Timing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JQE.2002.1005411

Filename

1005411