Theoretical Study on Wavelength Conversion Based on Cross Phase Modulation Using Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

Performances of wavelength converted signal by cross phase modulation (XPM) using semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA's) were studied by the use of the multi-section model. Results show that they are related to both the phase arm bias current of the XPM wavelength converter and its operation. When the conversion is under the in-phase operation, the peak extinction ratio (ER) and the chirp frequency of the converted signal increase according to the decrease of the phase arm bias current, but the input signal power dynamic range decreases. When the converter is under the out-of-phase operation, the chirp frequency decreases with the decrease of the phase arm bias current, while the peak ER and the input power dynamic range keep almost the same when the phase arm bias current changes.