Novel Wavelength Converter Using an Electroabsorption Modulator

Noboru EDAGAWA  Masatoshi SUZUKI  Shu YAMAMOTO  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Electronics   Vol.E81-C   No.8   pp.1251-1257
Publication Date: 1998/08/25
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Issue on High-Capacity WDM/TDM Networks)
Category: 
Keyword: 
wavelength conversion,  electroabsorption modulator,  optical signal processing,  

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Summary: 
Wavelength conversion is considered to be one of the key technologies for the future advanced optical networks. So far, intense efforts have been made to realize this functionality by using semiconductor lasers/amplifiers, optical fibers, LiNbO3/semiconductor waveguides. In this paper, we propose a novel wavelength converter using an electroabsorption (EA) modulator. The operating principle is based on the cross-absorption modulation effect of an InGaAsP EA modulator. High quality conversion has been demonstrated at 20 Gbit/s over 30 nm of wavelength range. The applicability to high speed signals (>40 Gbit/s) was also demonstrated. In addition, to study the expected versatility for all optical signal processing applications, broadcasting and extinction-ratio-improvement capability were evaluated.