All-optical regenerative OTDM add/drop multiplexing at 40 Gbit/s using monolithic InP Mach-Zehnder interferometer

Summary form only given. Add-drop time multiplexing is a necessary function required in an optical time-division multiplexed (OTDM) network node. Perfect clearing of the time slot which corresponds to the drop channel should be performed in order to avoid interferometric crosstalk. Simultaneous add-drop multiplexing using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) has been previously performed. However the performance was limited by pattern effects after clearing and the compromise between either perfect clearing or dropping. We present a novel method which allows for simultaneous perfect dropping and clearing for 40 Gb/s OTDM signals using a monolithically integrated SOA-MZI. Further the proposed technique introduces regenerative capabilities at each add-drop node avoiding the cascadability limitation of OTDM add-drop nodes.