Abstract

All-optical wavelength conversion has been extensively studied in recent years. One of the most promising ways to achieve all-optical wavelength conversion is to use cross-phase modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA). This method provides high extinction ratio of the converted signal, high bit rates, large wavelength range, and compact size.¹ Another advantage, which we will show in this paper, is that it is possible to perform broadcasting, i.e. converting a single data channel into several different wavelengths. Broadcasting is useful for applications in which the same data has to be sent to several clients. By converting the data to different wavelengths, it can be transmitted over the same fiber and a simple demultiplexer can be used for the routing of the channels to the final destination. Despite the large interest in all-optical wavelength converters, broadcasting has not yet been reported. Broadcasting can be achieved by converting the data signal to the electrical domain and using multiple transmitters. However, this requires the use of costly high-speed electronics. It can also be achieved by four-wave mixing in SOAs, but this suffers from low conversion effi-ciency and limited wavelength range.

© 2002 Optical Society of America