Investigation of group delay ripple distorted signals transmitted through all-optical 2R regenerators

We investigate the use of all-optical regenerators to correct pulse distortions introduced by group delay ripple. Group delay ripple creates unwanted satellite pulses and intensity fluctuations. By placing an all-optical regenerator after a device that introduces group delay ripple, we show that the signal distortions can be effectively reduced. This has the benefit of opening the signal eye at the receiver. The performances of both self-phase modulation and four-wave mixing based regenerators in reducing ripple induced system penalties are examined. We find that the regenerator based on four-wave mixing achieves better suppression of group delay ripple distortions than the self-phase modulation based alternative. The eye closure penalty introduced by group delay ripple is reduced by the four-wave mixing based regenerator by 1dB. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.