All-Optical 216 Gbps Super-channel Data Switching Using Co-Polarized Pump in SOA

Efficient bit transmission, flexible spectrum utilization, polarization and space division multiplexing (PDM and SDM), and advanced laser designs are among the recent technologies adopted for boosting the capacity and spectral efficiency (SE) of optical communication networks. In addition, all-optical wavelength conversion is required to reduce network latency and energy consumption. In this paper, we exploit the modulation and polarization transparency features of the semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in order to build a photonics-based wavelength converter for single and super-channel quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK)-PDM signals. An experimental demonstration is conducted and high transmission speeds are achieved including 18-, 20-, and 25-Gbaud. The experimental results show a conversion of a super-channel signal consisting of three dual-polarization QPSK signals with 216-Gbps total aggregated data rate using a co-propagated pump four-wave mixing (FWM) configuration.