All-Optical Phase Multiplexing from /2-Shifted DPSK-WDM to DQPSK Using Four-Wave Mixing in Highly-Nonlinear Fiber

Abstract

An all-optical phase multiplexing scheme for phase-modulated signals is proposed and experimentally demonstrated using fourwave mixing (FWM) in a highly-nonlinear fiber (HNLF). Two 10-Gb/s π/2-shifted differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) signals are experimentally demonstrated to be converted and phase-multiplexed into a 20-Gb/s differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK) signal with non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ) formats, respectively. Experimental results show that, due to phase-modulation-depth doubling effect and phase multiplexing effect in the FWM process, a DQPSK signal is successfully generated through the proposed all-optical phase multiplexing with improved receiver sensitivity and spectral efficiency.