All-optical cross-phase modulation based fiber wavelength converter and its application for future high speed photonic networks

Fiber Optic Networks have come a long way from simple point-to-point networks, where optical fibers were only used as a high capacity transmission pipe. Fiber optic links with aggregated capacity >5Tb/s have been successfully demonstrated using Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). WDM technology in addition has made optical networking a reality by employing some of the routing and switching functions in the optical domain. However single channel capacity of a WDM system is limited by the transmitter and receiver bandwidth. Optical Time Division Multiplexing (OTDM) is a promising way to boost the single channel capacity of a WDM system. Thus networks employing a combination of WDM and OTDM can provide increased capacity to satisfy demand for bandwidth in future. In such networks all-optical wavelength conversion of high bit-rate OTDM signal is a key requirement. And to further extend the reach and performance of these networks all-optical signal regeneration is important.; This dissertation describes one possible technique of performing wavelength conversion and regeneration simultaneously using cross-phase modulation in dispersion shifted fiber and wavelength conversion up to 80 Gb/s is demonstrated. The factors affecting efficiency of wavelength conversion by this technique are investigated using a numerical model. The amplitude and timing regeneration capability of this wavelength converter is demonstrated. The application of this wavelength converter technology to perform various network functions such as multiplexing, demultiplexing, channel add/drop, wavelength multicasting and label swapping required to enable a high-speed WDM-OTDM synchronous/packet network is demonstrated with very good performance. Finally the analog performance of this wavelength converter is measured. The wavelength converter has a spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) >75 dB-Hz2/3 indicating its suitability for analog applications.