Extinction ratio improvement using nonlinear four-wave mixing in SOAs with assist beam

✍ Scribed by Michal P. Dlubek; Andrew J. Phillips; Eric C. Larkins

• Book ID: 102517050
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 368 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0895-2477
• DOI: 10.1002/mop.23581

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

This letter presents a novel and simple scheme for all‐optical signal regeneration, based on four‐wave mixing (FWM) in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA). The nonlinear power transfer characteristic of the device is obtained by using the mixing product proportional to the squared power of the incoming signal. This nonlinear FWM scheme is further improved by using a strong assist beam, located close to the transparency point of the gain curve. This additional beam improves the nonlinear exponent of the transfer function; mainly by reducing gain saturation. Experimental results show that extinction ratio improvement by almost 3 dB at 4 Gb/s is obtained, accompanied by a wavelength shift of 3.3 nm. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 50: 2079–2083, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.23581