Experimental study of NRZ format wavelength conversion using electroabsorption modulator

In this paper, NRZ format wavelength conversion using cross absorption modulation (XAM) in InGaAsP MQW electroabsorption modulator (EAM) is investigated experimentally in detail for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. The influence of two key operating parameters, input signal power and bias voltage of EAM, on wavelength conversion performance is studied. Experimental results indicate that there exists optimal bias voltage for fixed input signal power and that there exists also optimal input signal power for fixed bias voltage and the lowest power penalty of 0.9 dB is obtained by optimizing these two parameters. The physical explanations are given for these results based on operating characteristic of EAM device. Finally, the probe light wavelength dependence of wavelength conversion is studied for span of 1530-1560 nm.