Performance of in-line all-optical signal regenerators utilizing self-phase modulation (SPM) or four-wave mixing (FWM) in fibers is analyzed. First, two types of SPM-based regenerators are analyzed and compared: one utilizes soliton-like pulse compression in anomalous-dispersion fiber and subsequent filtering and the other utilizes spectrum broadening in normal-dispersion fiber and subsequent spectrum slicing. Although both types of regenerators show good regenerator performance, one based on spectrum broadening and slicing has better ability of stabilization of signal amplitude while requiring larger signal power launched into the nonlinear fiber. Then the performance of FWM-based regenerators, which have ability of amplitude stabilization while maintaining phase information carried by the signal is discussed. It is shown that return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying transmission performance can be improved by the regenerator.

Date Published: 25 October 2004
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 5596, Optical Transmission Systems and Equipment for WDM Networking III, (25 October 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.580178

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5596:
Optical Transmission Systems and Equipment for WDM Networking III
Benjamin B. Dingel; Werner Weiershausen; Achyut K. Dutta; Ken-Ichi Sato, Editor(s)