Abstract

The ability to translate arbitrarily the wavelength of an optical signal will become crucial for the development of wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) optical networks. The perfect wavelength converter should be transparent to the bit rate and modulation format of the data, be wavelength flexible and easily tuned for translation to a longer or shorter wavelength, produce data output with a good extinction ratio and a large signal-to-noise ratio, and require only small input optical powers. Although many techniques for wavelength conversion have been demonstrated (a necessarily truncated and incomplete list is given as Refs. 1-13), no one technique satisfies the requirements of the perfect wavelength converter. In this talk we review and compare several techniques for wavelength conversion of high-speed optical signals.

© 1995 Optical Society of America