Multi-Channel NRZ/RZ-DPSK to CSRZ-DPSK Format Conversion Based on Nonlinear Polarization Rotation of SOA**Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 61425022, 61522501, 61675004, 61307086, 61475024, 61672290, 61475094 and 61605013, the National Basic Research Program of China under Grant Nos 2015AA015501, 2015AA015502, 2015AA015504, 2015AA016904 and 2015AA016901, and the Beijing Nova Program under Grant No Z141101001814048.

Abstract

We present an all-optical nonreturn-to-zero/return-to-zero (NRZ/RZ) to carrier-suppressed return-to-zero (CSRZ) format conversion scheme for differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) signals. The conversion is based on nonlinear polarization rotation of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The 4-channel NRZ-DPSK or RZ-DPSK signals at 10 Gb/s are simultaneously converted to the corresponding CSRZ-DPSK signals, with −0.8 and 1.4 dB average power penalties, respectively. Additionally, high quality format conversion performances are shown with the optical spectra and eye diagrams.