Tee-Hiang Cheng

A simplified model and optimal design of a multiwavelength backward-pumped fiber Raman amplifier

A simplified model to calculate the small-signal optical gain and noise figure of a multiwavelength backward-pumped fiber Raman amplifier under the triangle Raman profile approximation is developed for the first time. The application of the developed model in pump optimization design for flattening the gain spectrum profile is also discussed.

Dynamics of gain-guided solitons in an all-normal-dispersion fiber laser.

We report experimental and numerical results on the dynamics of gain-guided solitons in a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser made of purely normal dispersion fibers. We show that formation of the soliton in the laser is a result of mutual interaction and balance among the cavity transmission, fiber Kerr nonlinearity, gain saturation, and filtering over one cavity round trip.

A performance analysis of an all-optical clock extraction circuit based on Fabry-Perot filter

A performance analysis of an optical clock extraction circuit based on a Fabry-Perot filter (FPF) is presented. Two analytical methods, time-domain and frequency-domain analysis, are developed in this paper. Time-domain analysis shows that there is no phase jitter in the extracted optical clock if the free spectral range (FSR) of the FPF is exactly equal to the signal clock frequency. Based on this, we obtain an analytical expression for root mean square (rms) amplitude jitter of the extracted optical clock in time domain, in which we have taken the impacts of carrier frequency drift and carrier phase noise into account. When the FSR of the FPF deviates from the signal clock frequency, both phase jitter and amplitude jitter will occur in the extracted optical clock. In this situation, a more general frequency-domain method is developed to deal with the timing performance under the assumption that carrier phase noise is negligible. This method allows us to calculate both rms phase jitter and rms amplitude jitter of the extracted optical clock. Using the developed two methods, we present a detailed numerical investigation on the impacts of finesse of the FPF, carrier frequency drift, resonator detuning, carrier phase noise, and optical pulse chirp on the timing performance. Finally, the application of this circuit in multiwavelength clock recovery is discussed.

Generation of multiple gain-guided solitons in a fiber laser

We report the experimental observation of multiple gain-guided solitons in an erbium-doped fiber laser made of all normal-dispersion fibers. Numerical simulations show that, in the case of a narrow gain bandwidth, under the action of the cavity pulse peak clamping effect multiple gain-guided solitons can indeed be formed in a laser.

Bound states of dispersion-managed solitons in a fiber laser at near zero dispersion

We report on the observation of various bound states of dispersion-managed (DM) solitons in a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser at near zero net cavity group velocity dispersion (GVD). The generated DM solitons are characterized by their Gaussian-like spectral profile with no sidebands, which is distinct from those of the conventional solitons generated in fiber lasers with large net negative cavity GVD, of the parabolic pulses generated in fiber lasers with positive cavity GVD and negligible gain saturation and bandwidth limiting, and of the gain-guided solitons generated in fiber lasers with large positive cavity GVD. Furthermore, bound states of DM solitons with fixed soliton separations are also observed. We show that these bound solitons can function as a unit to form bound states themselves. Numerical simulations verified our experimental observations.

Performance Comparison of Using SOA and HNLF as FWM Medium in a Wavelength Multicasting Scheme With Reduced Polarization Sensitivity

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate the practical all-optical wavelength multicasting scheme based on the four-wave mixing (FWM) effect in both a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Then we carry out comprehensive comparisons of the performance differences between using the HNLF and SOA for this proposed multicasting scheme. Seven multicast channels are experimentally demonstrated by using three co-polarized probes and a modulated signal. The merit of the proposed scheme is that the polarization sensitivity is significantly reduced from more than 20 dB to approximately 5 dB using the HNFL and 2.5 dB using the SOA. The low polarization sensitivity leads to a difference of less than 1 dB in the power penalty of the multicast channels at bit error rate . In addition, we compare the multicasting performance of the OOK and differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) signals using the proposed scheme and found that the power penalties of the DPSK multicast channels in the HNLF and the SOA are less than 1.25 and 1.1 dB respectively, and the power penalties of the OOK multicast channels are less than 1.5 dB and 3.1 dB in the HNLF and the SOA, respectively.

High-speed optical switch fabrics with large port count

We report a novel architecture that can be used to construct optical switch fabrics with very high port count and nanoseconds switching speed. It is well known that optical switch fabrics with very fast switching time and high port count are challenging to realize. Currently, one of the most promising solutions is based on a combination of wavelength-tunable lasers and the arrayed waveguide grating router (AWGR). To scale up the number of ports in such switches, a direct method is to use AWGRs with a high channel count. However, such AWGRs introduce very large crosstalk noise due to the close wavelength channel spacing. In this paper, we propose an architecture for realizing a high-port count optical switch fabric using a combination of low-port count AWGRs, optical ON-OFF gates and WDM couplers. Using this new methodology, we constructed a proof-of concept experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of a 256 x 256 optical switch fabric. To our knowledge, this port count is the highest ever reported for switch fabrics of this type.

Theoretical investigation of fiber Raman amplifier with dynamic gain control

A gain-clamped fiber Raman amplifier is proposed and simulated. The results show that, gain variation of less than 0.2 dB over 70 nm bandwidth is obtainable for signal power variation of 18 dB.

Fiber Bragg grating-based rearrangeable nonblocking optical cross connects using multiport optical circulators

Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) based rearrangeable nonblocking optical cross connects (OXCs) using multiport optical circulators are proposed in this letter. The use of multiport optical circulators instead of three-port circulators can be more efficient for large optical cross connects systems. Performance evaluations of proposed large dimension optical cross connects are investigated.

A 448 × 448 optical cross-connect for high-performance computers and multi-terabit/s routers

We experimentally demonstrate the feasibility and dynamic switching performance of a 448 × 448 AWGR-based OXC with nanoseconds switching speed. To our knowledge, such a port-count is unprecedented for such switches.