Reshaping of picosecond optical pulses with a simple interferometer

In optical fiber communication systems, reshaping is crucial for long-haul transmission and networks due to the accumulated noise and dispersion, which will gradually degrade the signals. In this article, a SOA (Semiconductor Optical Amplifier)-based interferometer is proposed to realize all-optical signal reshaping. Such scheme is known as advantageous for operation at high speed, which is analyst in theory. The distorted picosecond optical pulses train with repetition rate of 10 GHz is reshaped successfully in experiments employing this simple interferometer. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 1606–1608, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22534