Performance Evaluation of Wavelength Conversion Using a Wideband Semiconductor Optical Amplifier at 40 Gbit/s

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we will report and characterize the impact of the nonlinear polarization rotation on the behavior of a wavelength converter based on cross-gain modulation effect in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) at 40 Gbit/s. Nevertheless, we investigate and evaluate its performance as function of the intrinsic and extrinsic SOA parameters, such as the bias current, the signal format, the input signal power and its polarization state that determine the magnitude of the polarization rotation by measuring the ellipticity and the azimuth. Also, the impact of noise effects on the structure behavior will be investigated through determining the noise figure. Particularly, we have focused on the performance of an improved wavelength conversion system via the analysis of quality factor and bit error rate referring to numerical simulation.