All-optical 2R regeneration and wavelength conversion at 20 Gb/s using an electroabsorption modulator

We describe experimental results of simultaneous all-optical 2R regeneration (reshape and reamplify) and wavelength conversion of return-to-zero data at 20 Gb/s using a reverse-biased electroabsorption modulator. The nonlinear optical transmission characteristic of the electroabsorption modulator reshapes the degraded input data by selective absorption of the optical noise and, therefore, increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the output, Reverse biasing the modulator allows fast recovery of the optical absorption for high data-rate operation without the detrimental bit-patterning effect. Error-free wavelength conversion and regeneration was obtained with more than 3-dB improvement of the receiver sensitivity at a bit-error-rate of 10/sup -9/.