Wide-Band Optical Wavelength Converter Based on Four-Wave Mixing Using Optimized Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

We have simulated 50 nm up and down wavelength conversion for a non-return to zero differential phase shift keying (NRZ-DPSK) signal using four-wave mixing in an optimized semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) at 10 Gb/s for the first time. For this we optimized the SOA parameters to achieve sufficient quality and enhancement in four-wave mixing effect. This can be done in such a manner that the SOA never saturates and produces maximum four-wave mixing signals with minimum gain fluctuations. The quality of the converted signal is best before the saturation of SOA. Finally, we have numerically simulated cascaded wavelength converters up to 1300 km transmission distance.