Bidirectional four-wave mixing in semiconductor optical amplifiers: Theoryand experiment

Bidirectional four-wave mixing (FWM) is investigated in a bulk semiconducto r optical amplifier (SOA) for dispersion compensation and for the clear/dro p functionality in optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) systems. Good p erformance for bidirectional midspan spectral inversion (MSSI) is theoretic ally predicted for bit rates of 10, 20, and 40 Gb/s and is shown to be in a greement with measurements performed at 10 and 20 Gb/s, Measurements of the clear/drop functionality using the bidirectional technique show excellent performance for a 4 x 10 Gb/s signal and is again in good agreement with si mulations. The clear/drop functionality is also simulated for 4 x 20 Gb/s a nd 4 x 40 Gb/s signals.