All-optical modulation format conversion from NRZ-OOK to PSK-Manchester using SOA-MZI

Proposed and demonstrated is an all-optical modulation format conversion from a non-return-to-zero on-off keying (NRZ-OOK) signal to a phase-shift keying (PSK)-Manchester format signal using a semiconductor optical amplifier based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (SOA-MZI). In the experiment, a 2.5 Gbit/s PSK-Manchester format signal was obtained from a NRZ-OOK signal and a 50 km error-free transmission of the converted PSK-Manchester format signal was achieved. In addition, the feasibility of the conversion at a higher data rate using SOAs with fast phase recovery was investigaged.