All-optical simultaneous drop and wavelength conversion of DPSK data

We demonstrate an all-optical scheme for the simultaneous drop and wavelength conversion of bursts of data from a continuous stream of differential phase-shift keyed (DPSK) signals. This function is obtained in a single semiconductor optical amplifier Mach-Zehnder interferometer thanks to proper nonlinear interaction of the data stream and an optical gate signal at different wavelength. Fast switching-time enabling wavelength shifting operation on continuous DPSK data stream at 10 and 40 Gb/s without any bit loss is reported. Corresponding measured power penalties are negligible at 10 Gb/s and about 1.7 dB at 40 Gb/s.