Performance Comparison of Using SOA and HNLF as FWM Medium in a Wavelength Multicasting Scheme With Reduced Polarization Sensitivity

• Published in: Journal of lightwave technology 2010-12, Vol.28 (24), p.3497-3505
• Main Authors: DAWEI WANG, CHENG, Tee-Hiang, YEO, Yong-Kee, ZHAOWEN XU, YIXIN WANG, GAOXI XIAO, JIANGUO LIU
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: All optical circuits; All-optical network; Applied sciences; Bit error rate; Channels; Circuit properties; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; fiber optics communications; Fines & penalties; Four-wave mixing; four-wave mixing (FWM); Information, signal and communications theory; Integrated optics. Optical fibers and wave guides; Modulation, demodulation; Multicast; Multicasting; Noise levels; Optical and optoelectronic circuits; Optical attenuators; Optical fiber communications; Optical polarization; Optical sensors; Optical telecommunications; optical wavelength multicasting; Polarization; polarization sensitivity; Probes; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Sensitivity; Signal and communications theory; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Wavelengths
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2010.2090130

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate the practical all-optical wavelength multicasting scheme based on the four-wave mixing (FWM) effect in both a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Then we carry out comprehensive comparisons of the performance differences between using the HNLF and SOA for this proposed multicasting scheme. Seven multicast channels are experimentally demonstrated by using three co-polarized probes and a modulated signal. The merit of the proposed scheme is that the polarization sensitivity is significantly reduced from more than 20 dB to approximately 5 dB using the HNFL and 2.5 dB using the SOA. The low polarization sensitivity leads to a difference of less than 1 dB in the power penalty of the multicast channels at bit error rate . In addition, we compare the multicasting performance of the OOK and differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) signals using the proposed scheme and found that the power penalties of the DPSK multicast channels in the HNLF and the SOA are less than 1.25 and 1.1 dB respectively, and the power penalties of the OOK multicast channels are less than 1.5 dB and 3.1 dB in the HNLF and the SOA, respectively.