40 Gb/s NRZ-DQPSK data wavelength conversion with amplitude regeneration using four-wave mixing in a quantum dash semiconductor optical amplifier

Abstract

Differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK) modulation is attractive in high-speed optical communications because of its resistance to fiber nonlinearities and more efficient use of fiber bandwidth compared to conventional intensity modulation schemes. Because of its wavelength conversion ability and phase preservation, semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) four-wave mixing (FWM) has attracted much attention. We experimentally study wavelength conversion of 40 Gbit/s (20 Gbaud) non-return-to-zero (NRZ)-DQPSK data using FWM in a quantum dash SOA with 20 dB gain and 5 dBm output saturation power. Q factor improvement and eye diagram reshaping is shown for up to 3 nm pump-probe detuning and is superior to that reported for a higher gain bulk SOA.

Keywords

differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK) / phase modulation / quantum-dash / semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) / four-wave mixing (FWM) / wavelength conversion

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Acknowledgement

This research was supported by Science Foundation Ireland Investigator Grant 09/IN.1/I2641.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2016 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg