An all-optical wavelength-converter with semiconductor optical amplifiers monolithically integrated in an asymmetric passive Mach-Zehnder interferometer

Abstract

An all-optical wavelength-converter based on monolithic integration of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and integrated semiconductor optical amplifiers was demonstrated. This device exhibited high stability, penalty-free conversion at 5 Gbit/s (at a BER of 10/sup 9/), no-excess penalty after a transmission over 60 km on standard fiber, and low signal-polarization dependency. The device operated in a 26-nm-wide optical window.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>