A novel approach to all-optical wavelength conversion by utilizing a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier in a co-propagation scheme

Nonlinear optical gain modulation in an InGaAsP/InP bulk reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) is studied. The differences of the optical properties between RSOAs and conventional SOAs are initially investigated. All-optical wavelength conversion based on nonlinear gain modulation in RSOAs is demonstrated at a bit rate of 2.488 Gbit/s. It is shown that a bit-error-rate of <10−9 can be achieved and an extinction ratio of >9 dB can be obtained at a bit rate of 2.488 Gbit/s with a 231–1 non-return-to-zero (NRZ) pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS). In comparison with conventional SOAs, wavelength conversion by RSOAs shows much improved performances in high-speed all-optical wavelength conversions.