Simulation performance of ASE-XGM wavelength converter for spectrum-sliced WDM system

Abstract

We evaluate the performance of a wavelength conversion technique based on the modulation of the amplified spontaneous emission of semiconductor optical amplifiers through simulation software. Unlike conventional conversion technique the ASE-XGM does not require a CW probe signal. The converted wavelength is determined by an optical filter, which slices the modulated ASE spectrum. We focus on bit error rate (BER)conversion performance of a 2.5 Gbit/s non-return to zero, pseudo-random sequence of order 11. BER values better than 10-9 are achieved for signal input power ranging from -6 dBm to 0 dBm, and for a slicing filter centered around 0.4 nm red shifted from signal wavelength.