Regenerative properties of interferometricall-optical DPSK wavelength converters

Opt Express. 2009 Dec 7;17(25):22639-58. doi: 10.1364/OE.17.022639.

Abstract

We discuss an all-optical DPSK wavelength conversion scheme comprising a delay-interferometer demodulation stage followed by a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, the arms of which are formed by nonlinear waveguides. If operated properly, the configuration shows regenerative behaviour. This is true for nonlinear waveguides with a dominant cross-gain nonlinearity (e. g., for an electro-absorption amplitude modulator) as well as for the case of a dominant cross-phase nonlinearity (e. g., for Kerr effect based phase modulator). In addition, we show that nonlinear materials exhibiting cross-gain modulation properties can provide a binary phase response so far only known from the transfer functions of digital electronics.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amplifiers, Electronic*
  • Computer-Aided Design
  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Interferometry / instrumentation*
  • Optical Devices*
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / instrumentation*
  • Telecommunications / instrumentation*