All-Optical Clock Recovery and Wavelength Conversion by Combination of Self-Pulsation Laser and Semiconductor-Optical-Amplifier-Based Mach–Zehnder Interferometer

Distributed feedback (DFB) self-pulsating lasers (SP-LDs) and a monolithically integrated semiconductor-optical-amplifier (SOA)-based Mach–Zehnder interferometer (SOA-MZI) were fabricated. Frequency-selective pulsation at 10 and 40 GHz was demonstrated for a self-pulsating DFB laser by adjusting driving conditions. Self-pulsation at 40 GHz was based on a beating-type oscillation mechanism, whereas self-pulsation at 10 GHz was based on a dispersive Q-switching mechanism, where a sideband of the DFB stopband operated as a dispersive mirror. Injection locking phenomena and optical clock regeneration were also confirmed for both frequencies. All-optical wavelength conversion of 10 Gbps return-to-zero pseudo random binary sequence (RZ-PRBS) optical signal with timing jitter reduction was successfully demonstrated by a hybrid combination of SP-LD and SOA-MZI for a wide wavelength range of input signal.