Reconfigurable photonic differentiators based on all-optical phase modulation and linear filtering

We theoretically propose a novel scheme to implement two types of optical differentiators using all-optical phase modulation and linear filtering. Differences between the two differentiators rely on whether the differentiated signals are formed on the optical intensity or optical field of the output signal, which in turns depends on the relative shift between the probe wavelength and the closest notches of a linear filter. A proof-of-concept experiment is carried out using a semiconductor optical amplifier and a fiber-based delay interferometer (DI). Both differentiators are obtained for periodical Gaussian pulses and pseudo random non-return-to-zero signals at various data rates. Defined as the mean absolute deviation of the measured waveform from the ideal one, total average errors of less than 18% are observed in all cases. The impact of probe wavelength on the total average errors is investigated. Due to periodical feature of the DI spectrum, we also demonstrate the capability of multi-channel differentiation.