Abstract

In this paper, numerical simulations are employed to study the properties of an actively-mode-locked fiber-ring laser under pseudo random optical modulation. The work relates directly to recent experiments by Greer, Smith, and Lucek,^1,2 in which they have demonstrated an all-optical signal regenerator for telecommunications applications. In these experiments, an incoming train of optical pulses served as the modulation signal controlling a mode-locked fiber laser that provided the optical source for the regenerator. The modulation occurred in a long (~8-km) intracavitin which the modulation and laser signals propagated together. In one demonstration, the modulating signal consisted of a random stream of ones and zeros, which in a practical application would be degraded by passage through upstream fiber; after driving the mode-locked laser source, the signal recreated the original pulse sequence in a nonlinear loop modulator to complete the regeneration process.

© 1995 Optical Society of America