A 10-Gb/s Monolithically Integrated Filterless InGaAsP/InP Widely Tunable Wavelength Converter With Conversion Gain

In this paper, we present the details of a monolithically integrated filterless wavelength converter based on photocurrent-driven technology. The device consists of an integrated tunable laser transmitter and an optical receiver. The transmitter includes a sampled-grating distributed-Bragg-reflector laser, an electroabsorption modulator, and a semiconductor optical amplifier. The optical receiver employs two semiconductor optical amplifiers and a quantum-well p-i-n photodetector. The wavelength converter is characterized at 10 Gb/s over a variety of bias conditions at various input-power levels in various digital-system experiments. Bit-error-rate measurements at 10 Gb/s over an output tuning range of 32 nm between 1531 and 1563 nm show power penalties less than 1 dB. Similar experiments over an input wavelength range of 25 nm from 1535 to 1560 nm show a power penalty less than 2.5 dB. For a wavelength conversion from 1548 nm to a range of output wavelengths between 1531 and 1563 nm, the facet-to-facet gain ranges from 9 to 13 dB, neglecting fiber coupling losses.