Flat-top interleavers with chromatic dispersion compensator based on phase dispersive free space Mach-Zehnder interferometer

In this paper, novel interleavers using circular cavities (CC) in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) has been presented and demonstrated for the first time, in which CCs act as phase dispersive mirrors which exhibit a periodic dependence on the frequency of light. Three implementation schemes have been proposed and investigated. Theoretical analysis shows the spectral characteristics of each scheme in a 50-GHz channel spacing application. Furthermore, the chromatic dispersion (CD) of each output comb can be flattened within passband by appending an additional CC. The result shows that the proposed designs with novel interferometer technique can simultaneously provide flat top passbands, high isolation stopband and low CD value as well.     

Investigation of data format conversions based on MZI-SOA

Employing a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI), this paper describes simulation demonstration of an all-optical scheme for data format conversion between non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ). Data format conversion between NRZ and RZ at 120 Gb/s has been simulated for the first time using an MZI. In addition, we have proposed for the first time data format conversion from NRZ to RZ by using a single SOA in an MZI.     

All-optical regeneration of DQPSK/QPSK signals based on phase-sensitive amplification

An all-optical regeneration scheme for DQPSK and QPSK signals using phase-sensitive amplifiers (PSAs) is studied and its effectiveness is investigated through numerical simulations. By leveraging the ability of PSAs to provide phase and amplitude regenerative amplification, we show significant simultaneous suppression of both phase and amplitude noises of (D)QPSK signals under optimized conditions. The reduction in the phase noise variance of a noise-corrupted DQPSK signal obtained by one such regenerative amplification can be as large as ∼5.5 folds, showing its good potential for distributed optical regeneration of (D)QPSK signals.     

82-channel multi-wavelength comb generation in a SOA fiber ring laser

We demonstrate a multi-wavelength semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) fiber ring laser with a dual-pass Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) filter. Two SOAs with different gain spectra provide sufficient gain and a wider gain spectrum to facilitate multi-wavelength lasing. The dual-pass MZI, configured by adding an optical isolator to the two outputs of the conventional MZI, serves as comb filter for multi-wavelength operation, and its extinction ratio can be enhanced to twofold as that of the conventional MZI in the same parameters. To investigate the influences of a dual-pass MZI filter and a conventional MZI filter on multi-wavelength operation, two different cavity configurations are presented and compared, including a single-SOA ring cavity and a double-SOA ring cavity. Stable simultaneous operation at 82 wavelengths, with a wavelength spacing of 40 GHz and a power deviation of 5 dB, and with a minimum optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) of 28 dB, is observed from the double-SOA ring cavity using a dual-pass MZI filter.     

ASE Noise-Reduced Optical Receiver Based on MZI Diversity Scheme

A novel method is proposed that reduces the bit error rate (BER) in an optically amplified system by using a Mach–Zender interferometer coherence manipulation at the receiver. Exact analysis is presented, which shows that the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved by 3 dB. Resulting BER improvements are presented.     

A novel measurement method for the photosensitivity of fibers

An online measurement method for the photosensitivity of fibers is proposed. This method is simple and useful. Theoretical and experimental studies have been carried out. This method is based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). One arm of the MZI is externally exposed to UV light at 248 nm originating from a KrF excimer laser. Then the output optical spectrum is measured, by some relevant analysis, and the photosensitivity of the fiber can be obtained. The relationship between the refractive index increment of fibers and the exposure time is in accordance with the absorbing model that is brought forward by H. Patrick, which shows that this method has high precision.     

20-Gb/s and Higher Bit Rate Optical Wavelength Conversion for RZ-DPSK Signal Based on Four-Wave Mixing in Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

We investigate 20 Gb/s wavelength conversion for return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (RZ-DPSK) signal using four-wave mixing (FWM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). We show that the 10-Gb/s RZ-DPSK signal-to-pump ratio increases up to -0.286 dB with Q factor improvement of 1.663 dB for increasing the cascadeability of optical networks. The effect of variation in bandwidth for an ideal dual-arm Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is illustrated. For different bit rates, the converted power signal is investigated with increase in signal input power. We show that the quality of converted signal is best before the saturation of SOA. The dependence of four-wave mixing (FWM) efficiency and converted signal power with signal input power is also studied, and it is found that FWM efficiency decreases with increase in signal input power.

The impact of signal-to-pump power ratio, unsaturated amplifier gain, and pump power is further optimized with minimum Q factor penalty for 10-Gb/s and 20-Gb/s bit rate. We show that converted signal power increases up to power saturation level and then starts decreasing. We also show that with higher bit rate, we have a wide range of choices for pump power signal. We further investigate the quality of converted signal at 10 Gb/s, which shows an improvement over signal input power. Finally, the increase in transmission distance after wavelength conversion is investigated.     

Characterization of asymmetric filtered 40 Gb/s RZ-DPSK system-strong filtering considerations

We present the impact of frequency offsetting of strong (e.g. 35 GHz) optical filters on the performance of 42.7 Gb/s 50% RZ-DPSK systems. The performance is evaluated when offsetting the filter by substantial amounts and it is found that with an offset of almost half the bit rate there is a significant improvement in the calculated ‘Q’ (> 1 dB). We deployed balanced, constructive single ended and destructive single ended detection, so that we could investigate the physical origins of the penalty reduction of asymmetric filtering of 42.7 Gb/s 50% RZ-DPSK system.     

20-Gb/s and Higher Bit Rate Optical Wavelength Conversion for RZ-DPSK Signal Based on Four-Wave Mixing in Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

Abstract

We investigate 20 Gb/s wavelength conversion for return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (RZ-DPSK) signal using four-wave mixing (FWM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). We show that the 10-Gb/s RZ-DPSK signal-to-pump ratio increases up to ?0.286 dB with Q factor improvement of 1.663 dB for increasing the cascadeability of optical networks. The effect of variation in bandwidth for an ideal dual-arm Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is illustrated. For different bit rates, the converted power signal is investigated with increase in signal input power. We show that the quality of converted signal is best before the saturation of SOA. The dependence of four-wave mixing (FWM) efficiency and converted signal power with signal input power is also studied, and it is found that FWM efficiency decreases with increase in signal input power.

The impact of signal-to–pump power ratio, unsaturated amplifier gain, and pump power is further optimized with minimum Q factor penalty for 10-Gb/s and 20-Gb/s bit rate. We show that converted signal power increases up to power saturation level and then starts decreasing. We also show that with higher bit rate, we have a wide range of choices for pump power signal. We further investigate the quality of converted signal at 10 Gb/s, which shows an improvement over signal input power. Finally, the increase in transmission distance after wavelength conversion is investigated.     

Performance evaluation of 16 channel DWDM radio-over-fiber link

In this article, generation of DWDM-RoF signal utilizing an SOA-MZI multichannel frequency up-conversion is demonstrated. The simulation results of a 16 channel, 10 km DWDM-RoF link at baseband signal of 500 Mbps, over the wavelength range 1545.80–1552.20 nm are reported. BER of the order of e⁻¹⁸ and Q factor above 18 dB over the entire bandwidth signify negligible crosstalk and error free transmission of radio signal.