Performance Studies of Multi-Wavelength All-Optical 2R Regeneration Subsystems Based on Highly Non-Linear Fibers

Single-channel 2R regeneration has been widely demonstrated in the past using highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF)- based regenerators that exploit the self-phase modulation (SPM) effect. However, the direct extension of these regenerators to include multi-wavelength (multi-lambda) operation is not feasible due to the debilitating nonlinear interaction between the WDM channels, associated with the cross-phase modulation effect (XPM). In the present paper two appropriately modified fiber-based schemes for multi-lambda regeneration at 40 Gb/s and even higher data rate are presented. The schemes utilize multiple fibers with alternating dispersion, minimizing the effect of XPM and resulting in regeneration of the degraded WDM channels.