All-optical 2R regeneration based on polarization rotation in a linear optical amplifier

All-optical 2R-regeneration based on polarization rotation in a single semiconductor linear optical amplifier is experimentally demonstrated. An extinction ratio (ER) improvement of 15 dB has been obtained for an input ER of 5 dB under static operation. With a degraded input signal, a receiversensitivity improvement of >3 dB at a bit error rate of 10/sup -9/ was found for 2.5 Gb/s. Regenerative capability for 10 Gb/s has also been verified.