ALL-OPTICAL WAVELENGTH CONVERSION BY SEMICONDUCTOR OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS

Following a brief introduction to the applications for wavelength conv ersion and the different available conversion techniques, the paper gi ves an in depth analysis of cross gain and cross phase wavelength conv ersion in semiconductor optical amplifiers, The influence of saturatio n filtering on the bandwidth of the converters is explained and condit ions for conversion at 20 Gb/s or more are identified. The cross gain modulation scheme shows extinction ratio degradation for conversion to longer wavelengths. This can be overcome using cross phase modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers that are integrated into interfer ometric structures, The first results for monolithic integrated interf erometric wavelength converters are reviewed, and the quality of the c onverted signals is demonstrated by transmission of 10 Gb/s converted signals over 60 km of nondispersion shifted single mode fiber.