All optical wavelength conversion schemes for increased input power dynamic range

Abstract

Schemes for increasing the input power dynamic range of interferometric wavelength converters are presented with experiments at 10 Gb/s showing large improvements. A simple conversion scheme that uses current control of the interferometer improves the dynamic range from /spl sim/3-/spl sim/8 dB. A simpler method of inserting an Er-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) before the converter results in more than 40 dB of dynamic range while a method of using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) for power control gives /spl sim/28-dB dynamic range.