Single SOA based 16 DWDM channels all-optical NRZ-to-RZ format conversions with different duty cycles

We demonstrate simultaneous NRZ-to-RZ conversion for 16 DWDM channels, using a single SOA and a subsequent delay interferometer (DI) acting as a comb-like filter to control the obtained pulsewidth for all of the channels. The SOA is operated in deep saturation, resulting in weak cross gain modulation and cross phase modulation induced crosstalk between different NRZ channels. By adjusting the detuning between the peaks in the DI spectrum and each corresponding carrier, good quality RZ signals with different duty cycles can be achieved. Bit-error-rate measurements show negative power penalties for the obtained RZ signals with different duty cycles. Significant timing jitter reductions for all channels show the good regenerative performance of the proposed converter.