All-optical wavelength conversion by four-wave mixing in a semiconductor optical amplifier

Wavelength division multiplexed optical communication systems will soon become an integral part of commercial optical networks. A crucial new function required in WDM networks is wavelength conversion, the spectral translation of information-laden optical carriers, which enhances wavelength routing options and greatly improves network reconfigurability. One of several techniques for implementing this function is four-wave mixing utilizing ultra-fast intraband nonlinearities in semiconductor optical amplifiers.; The effects of input power, noise prefiltering and semiconductor optical amplifier length on the conversion efficiency and optical signal-to-noise ratio were examined. Systems experiments have been conducted in which several important performance characteristics of the wavelength converter were studied. A bit-error-rate performance of {dollar}<{dollar}10{dollar}sp{lcub}-9{rcub}{dollar} at 10 Gb/s was achieved for a record shift of 18 nm down in wavelength and 10 nm up in wavelength. Two cascaded conversions spanning a 40 km fiber link at 10 Gb/s are also demonstrated for conversions of up to 9 nm down and up in wavelength. The dynamic range of input signal power and its impact on the BER performance were studied at 2.5 Gb/s for both a single-channel conversion and a simultaneous 2-channel conversion. The crosstalk penalty induced by parasitic cross-gain modulation in 2-channel conversion is quantified. The spectral inversion which results from the conversion process is studied by time-resolved spectral analysis, and its application as a technique for dispersion compensation is demonstrated.; Finally, the application of selective organometallic vapor-phase epitaxy for the formation of highly-uniform and densely-packed arrays of GaAs quantum dots is demonstrated. GaAs dots of 15-20 nm in base diameter and 8-10 nm in height terminated by slow-growth crystallographic planes were grown within dielectric-mask openings and characterized by atomic force microscopy.