Linear optical signal processing with optical filters: a tutorial

Abstract

An effective theoretical analysis method is presented to analyze different linear optical signal processing functions with optical filters reported in literatures. For different applications, the optical filters are supposed to operate on the analog or digital part of the signal separately, namely analog spectrum conversion and digital spectrum conversion. For instance, the return-to-zero (RZ) to non-return-to-zero (NRZ) format conversion for intensity or phase modulated signals are based on the analog spectrum conversion process, while the (N)RZ to (N)RZ phase-shift-keying (PSK) format conversion, logic NOT gate and clock recovery for RZ signals are based on the digital spectrum conversion process. Theoretical analyses with the help of numerical simulation are used to verify the reported experimental results, and all the experimental results can be effectively analyzed with this analytical model. The effect of the transmission spectrum of the filter on the performance of the converted signal is investigated. The most important factor is that the theoretical analysis provides an effective way to optimize the optical filter for different optical signal processing functions.

Keywords

linear optical signal processing / format conversion / optical filter / clock recovery / logic gate

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. José Azaña from INRS in Canada for helpful suggestions in preparing the manuscript. This work was supported in part by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011CB301704), the Nature Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 61125501), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Major International Joint Research Project (Grant No. 61320106016) and Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (No. 2014CFA004).

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