The dynamical properties of an InP photonic crystal nanocavity are experimentally investigated using pump-probe techniques and compared to simulations based on coupled-mode theory. Excellent agreement between experimental results and simulations is obtained when employing a rate equation model containing three time constants, that we interpret as the effects of fast carrier diffusion from an initially localized carrier distribution and the slower effects of surface recombination and bulk recombination. The variation of the time constants with parameters characterizing the nanocavity structure is investigated. The model is further extended to evaluate the importance of the fast and slow carrier relaxation processes in relation to patterning effects in the device, as exemplified by the case of all-optical wavelength conversion.

We demonstrate chip-based Tbaud optical signal processing for all-optical performance monitoring, switching and demultiplexing based on the instantaneous Kerr nonlinearity in a dispersion-engineered As(2)S(3) planar waveguide. At the Tbaud transmitter, we use a THz bandwidth radio-frequency spectrum analyzer to perform all-optical performance monitoring and to optimize the optical time division multiplexing stages as well as mitigate impairments, for example, dispersion. At the Tbaud receiver, we demonstrate error-free demultiplexing of a 1.28 Tbit/s single wavelength, return-to-zero signal to 10 Gbit/s via four-wave mixing with negligible system penalty (< 0.5 dB). Excellent performance, including high four-wave mixing conversion efficiency and no indication of an error-floor, was achieved. Our results establish the feasibility of Tbaud signal processing using compact nonlinear planar waveguides for Tbit/s Ethernet applications.

Abstract:We demonstrate a field trial of a 640-Gbaud NRZ signal generated by RZ-to-NRZ conversion of a phase-coherent RZ-OTDM signal. This is employed in a 1.19-Tbit/s PDM-NRZ-OOK field transmission with BER< 3.8×10 -3 for all 128 tributaries.

Abstract-This paper reports on the utilization of the timedomain optical Fourier transformation (OFT) technique for serial-to-parallel conversion of optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) data tributaries into dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) channels. The OFT is implemented by using a dispersive medium followed by phase modulation; the latter being achieved by a four-wave mixing process with linearly chirped pump pulses. Both numerical and experimental investigations of the OTDM-to-WDM conversion technique are carried out. Experimental validations are performed on 320-and 640-Gbit/s OTDM data with error-free performance.Index Terms-All-optical demultiplexing, four-wave mixing (FWM), optical time division multiplexing (OTDM), serial-toparallel conversion, spectral compression, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM).

Abstract:We report the first demonstration of polarisation insensitive alloptical wavelength conversion (AOWC) for single wavelength channel 640 Gbit/s return-to-zero differential-phase-shift-keying (RZ-DPSK) signal and 1.28 Tbit/s polarisation multiplexed (Pol-Mux) RZ-DPSK signals using a 100-m polarisation-maintaining highly nonlinear fiber (PM-HNLF) in a polarisation diversity loop configuration. The AOWC is based on four-wave mixing in PM-HNLF. Error free performance is achieved for the wavelength converted signals. Less than 0.5 dB polarisation sensitivity is obtained.