Performance enhancement of pre-spectrum slicing technique for wavelength conversion

Abstract

This paper details a proposal and successful demonstration of an ultra-narrow and very high optical signal-to-noise ratio wavelength converted channel that was generated from an efficient ultra-narrow pre-spectrum sliced probe channel via four-wave mixing in a highly non-linear fiber medium. An array of narrowband fiber Bragg grating filters acted as a discriminative component to pre-spectrum slice the probe channel from backward amplified spontaneous emission, which, in turn, induced an additional fiber Bragg grating filtering mechanism within an erbium-doped fiber medium in a saturable configuration. A resultant optical signal-to-noise ratio of more than 70 dB in the probe channel gave rise to a 40 dB optical signal-to-noise ratio in the converted channel. These outcomes indicate the proposed scheme is highly suitable for practical, cost-effective wavelength conversion in any "pre-spectrum sliced" optical communication system.