Remotely Pumped All-Optical Wavelength Conversion for WDM-PON-Based Access-Metro Convergence

Abstract

Access-metro convergence networks (AMCN) have been proposed as a future optical communication network to realize flexible and dynamic bandwidth allocation. An AMCN requires transceivers with different wavelengths for the optical network units (ONUs). This causes an increase in production costs. Although an all-optical wavelength converter (AOWC) mitigates this issue, the AOWC increases the installation cost because it consists of many expensive optical devices. We propose the use of a remotely pumped AOWC (RP-AOWC) with an AMCN. The proposed technique can reduce the number of pump light sources in the AOWC. This paper demonstrates this reduction in the number of light sources and the feasibility of wavelength conversion using pump light propagation. We calculate the reduction in the number of pump sources and the number of transceiver types caused by the use of RP-AOWC and experiment with the wavelength conversion using pump light propagation.

POL-MUX System for Noncoherent Optical Networks

“…POL-MUX system was the subject of research mostly in the 1990s and plenty of research groups were interested in this topic. Although it allows doubling of bandwidth and brings many advantages in comparison with other known multiplexing techniques, due to difficult demultiplexing, it was no longer prospective for further development, and WDM systems played the main role in the field of optical networks for many years [8][9][10][11][12][13]. The renaissance came after 2000, when the group of Yao et al [5,6] engaged in research of POL-MUX systems using an all-optic scheme for polarization demultiplexing.…”