Enhanced 40 and 80 Gb/s wavelength conversion using a rectangular shaped optical filter for both red and blue spectral slicing

• Published in: Optics express Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 1184 - 1193
• Main Authors: Raz, O, Herrera, J, Dorren, H J S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 02-02-2009
• ISSN: 1094-4087; 1094-4087
• DOI: 10.1364/OE.17.001184

By using a tunable filter with tunability of both bandwidth and wavelength and a very sharp filter roll-off, considerable improvement of all optical Wavelength Conversion, based on Cross Gain and Phase Modulation effects in a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier and spectral slicing, is shown. At 40 Gb/s slicing of blue spectral components is shown to result in a small penalty of 0.7 dB, with a minimal eye broadening, and at 80 Gb/s the low demonstrated 0.5 dB penalty is a dramatic improvement over previously reported wavelength converters using the same principal. Additionally, we give for the first time quantitative results for the case of red spectral slicing at 40 Gb/s which we found to have only 0.5 dB penalty and a narrower time response, as anticipated by previously published theoretical papers. Numerical simulations for the dependence of the eye opening on the filter characteristics highlight the importance of the combination of a sharp filter roll-off and a broad passband.