WDM-POLSK Transmission Systems by Using Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

The authors demonstrate the potential of using POLarization Shift Keying (POLSK) modulation format combined with semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission systems. The constant intensity of the POLSK modulation format allows for substantial removal of cross-gain-modulation impairments in SOAs so that practical amplifier spacing values (more than 100 km) are demonstrated in various different experimental configurations. Record WDM transmission experiments at 10 Gb/s by using SOA-based amplification are presented in short and medium reach system architectures using either single mode fiber or nonzero dispersion shifted fiber