Multichannel NRZ-to-RZ modulation format conversion using cross-gain modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier

We propose the use of cross-gain modulation (XGM) for multichannel NRZ-to-RZ data format conversion in a single semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Four 10Gb/s WDM NRZ signals are converted simultaneously to RZ format without logic inversion. The proposed technique is advantageous over previous schemes due to its particular simplicity, polarization independency, and wavelength-shift-free operation. It maintains good performance under 16.5dB input power dynamic range, and large time and wavelength offsets between input signals and control clock.