Abstract

Optical frequency (or wavelength) conversion will be a key issue for future high capacity FDM (or WDM) networks. Important features of frequency converters are: transparency to bit rates and modulation format, ability to convert high bit rate data signals, insensitivity to the state of polarization of the data signal, low degradation of the signal to noise and extinction ratio in order to allow converters to be cascaded, a large frequency conversion range, tunability of the frequency of the input and/or converted data signal, sufficient tolerance to the required optical power level etc. In addition to optoelectronic frequency conversion several "all optical" conversion techniques have been reported, for example: optical gain and refractive index modulation in semiconductor laser amplifiers (SLA), four-wave mixing in SLA, in fibres and in laser diodes, and finally optical modulation of laser diodes. In this contribution we focus the discussion on applications of SLA for frequency conversion.

© 1994 Optical Society of America