The interest towards passive control of the light polarization through nonlinear effects has been stimulated by recent works: in particular a polarization pulling effect has been obtained by means of stimulated Brillouin scattering. Here we investigate the condition for obtaining polarization pulling by exploiting the stimulated Raman scattering, which is most suitable for optical communications thanks to its large gain bandwidth. The role of the polarization-dependent Raman amplification and of the random fiber birefringence is clarified by theoretical considerations and numerical simulations starting from the vector theory of the Raman effect in optical fiber. Experiments carried out with a 1571-nm signal and high-power 1486-nm pump evidence the Raman-induced polarization pulling.

Modulation cancellation and signal inversion are demonstrated within reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers. The effect is necessary to implement colorless optical network units for network end-users, where downstream signals need to be erased in order to reuse the carrier for upstream transmission. The results presented here indicate that reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers possess the perfect high-speed all-optical gain saturation characteristics to completely cancel the downstream modulation at microwatt optical power levels and are thus the prime candidate to be constituents of future optical network units. Theoretical considerations are supported by experiments that show the cancellation of signals with a 6 dB extinction ratio at 2.5 Gbit/s.

The operation of a network-embedded colorless selftuning transmitter for WDM networks is experimentally demonstrated from 2.5-up to 10.7-Gb/s data rates. Colorless operation is achieved by self-seeding an ultra-fast reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) with the feedback signal reflected at the WDM multiplexer filter. In particular, the transmitter exploits a 2-Faraday rotators configuration to ensure polarization insensitive operation and allowing for the exploitation of high gain RSOAs, which can be designed to operate on a single polarization. The impact on the transmission of the fiber chromatic dispersion at different bit-rates and with different channel bandwidths of the WDM multiplexer filter is experimentally investigated up to 10.7 Gb/s. The tolerance to positive and negative dispersive loads is also assessed.

Reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) fiber cavity lasers are attractive colorless, self-seeded, self-tuning, and directly modulatable sources for passive optical networks (PONs). They comprise of an RSOA in the optical network unit as the active element, a distribution fiber as the laser cavity, a waveguide grating router, and a common reflective mirror with the latter two positioned at the remote node. In this paper, we introduce a model and perform simulations to elucidate the recently discovered successful operation of this new PON source. The results are in agreement with experiments; the formation of a narrow laser spectrum with a relatively constant output power is seen despite a relatively broad passband window of the waveguide grating router. We further study mode competition and mode partition noise. It is shown that proper chromatic dispersion management can overcome mode partition noise limitations. The quality of the RSOA fiber cavity laser does not degrade when being directly modulated and as a result these highly multimode lasers offer an economic way to transport Gbit/s upstream data over kilometers of fiber in a wavelength division multiplexing-PON.

Reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA)-based network-embedded self-tuning solutions for colorless optical network unit in wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network architecture suffer the device polarization-dependent gain (PDG). The Faraday-mirror-based topology proposed in the literature for low PDG RSOA is not suitable for high PDG RSOA. A polarization retracing circuit is proposed and discussed to comply with the high PDG RSOA. The polarization evolution is theoretically and experimentally analyzed in the presence of a high PDG RSOA comparing three cases: standard topology with standard mirror, the retracing circuit proposed in the literature with a Faraday rotator mirror (FRM), and the proposed retracing circuit, which includes both an FRM and a Faraday rotato

We present the results of an in-depth experimental investigation about all-optical wavelength conversion of a 100-Gb/s polarization-multiplexed (POLMUX) signal. Each polarization channel is modulated at 25 Gbaud by differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK). The conversion is realized exploiting the high nonlinear chi((2)) coefficient of a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide, in a polarization-independent configuration. We find that slight non-idealities in the polarization independent setup of the wavelength converter can significantly impair the performance of POLMUX systems. We show that high-quality wavelength conversion can be nevertheless achieved for both the polarization channels, provided that an accurate optimization of the setup is performed. This is the first demonstration, to the best of our knowledge, of the possibility to obtain penalty-free all-optical wavelength conversion in a 100-Gb/s POLMUX transmission system using direct-detection.

Operation of a network-embedded colorless selftuning transmitter for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks is experimentally demonstrated at 10-Gb/s data rate. Colorless operation is achieved by self-seeding an O-band reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) with the feedback signal reflected at the remote node WDM multiplexer filter. In particular, the transmitter exploits a 2-Faraday rotators configuration to ensure polarization insensitive operation and allowing for the exploitation of high gain O-band RSOAs, which present a very high polarization dependent gain. Two different multiplexers and various lengths of drop fibers constituted the network-embedded transmitters. Transmission up to 72 km of standard single mode fiber has been demonstrated at 10 Gb/s, confirming the absence of chromatic dispersion penalties as expected from the choice of the O-band operation. Index Terms-Passive optical network (PON), reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA), colorless transmitter, fronthaul.

We report in this letter, the experimental demonstration\ud of simultaneous dispersion and nonlinearity compensation in\ud an embedded link characterized by strongly asymmetrical power\ud profiles. This result is obtained by using a highly efficient optical\ud phase conjugator based on a periodically poled lithium-niobate\ud waveguide, combined with two small dispersion-compensating\ud elements properly inserted in the link