4 × 10 Gb s−1 wavelength multicasting with tunable NRZ-to-RZ format conversion using nonlinear polarization rotation in an SOA

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate simultaneous 4 × 10 Gb s−1 all-optical wavelength multicasting and non-return-to-zero (NRZ)-on-off-keying (OOK) to return-to-zero (RZ)-OOK format conversion with a tunable duty cycle using nonlinear polarization rotation in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The experimental results show that the duty cycle of four converted RZ-OOK signals can be tuned by adjusting the orientation of a polarizer placed at the SOA output. Four-channel NRZ-OOK-to-RZ-OOK conversion with a full width at half maximum of 33–67 ps can be simultaneously obtained with an extinction ratio over 10 dB. Moreover, it is experimentally verified that such a wavelength multicasting scheme with simultaneous NRZ-OOK-to-RZ-OOK conversion is insensitive to the wavelength of the input signal, indicating that such a scheme can be operated in the whole C-band with less than 0.18 dB power penalty at a bit error ratio level of 10−9. The device can facilitate the cross-connection between optical transmission networks employing different modulation formats.