ALL-OPTICAL SIGNAL REGULARIZING/REGENERATION USING A NONLINEAR FIBER SAGNAC INTERFEROMETER SWITCH WITH SIGNAL-CLOCK WALK-OFF

All-optical signal regularizing/regeneration using a nonlinear fiber Sagnac interferometer switch (NSIS) that employs signal-clock walk-off is investigated. The NSIS realizes all-optical signal regeneration, including timing and amplitude regularizing, by switching clock pulses with amplified input signals using a walk-off-induced wide, square switching window and intensity-dependent transmittance of the device. First, characteristics (in both the temporal and spectral domains) of the all-optical signal regeneration achieved with the NSIS are investigated theoretically and experimentally. They certify that if clock pulses are within the square switching window obtained with signal-clock walk-off, the clock pulses can be modulated according to the data that the input signals carry and retain their temporal and spectral profiles. This means that if clock pulses can be prepared that meet the system requirements, the NSIS can convert input signals that may not satisfy system requirements into high-quality output signals. Limitations on the switching contrast due to the cross-phase modulation of counterpropagating reference pulses is also discussed. Second, two possible applications of NSIS-based all-optical signal regularizing/regeneration, 1) an all-optical multiplexer with an optical clock and 2) an all-optical regenerative repeater, are discussed. Preliminary experiments with similar to 10-ps pulses at bit rates of similar to 5 Gb / s that use locally prepared optical clock pulses, show that the NSIS provides an error-free regeneration function with a certain tolerance for pulse-period irregularity if a proper optical clock is obtained.