Cascadability properties of MZI-SOA-based all-optical 3R regenerators for RZ-DPSK signals

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate 50 cascaded all-optical 3R regenerators over a 1,000 km transmission distance for 10-Gb/s return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (RZ-DPSK) signals. The regenerator consists of integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) based wavelength converters. Regenerative properties and tolerance to pattern dependent effects have been studied in terms of Q-factor measurement, and error free operation with input OSNR of 20 dB/0.1 nm has also been demonstrated.