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Optical data regeneration is attractive, due to its potential to increase transmission reach and data throughput in communication systems, and several interesting proposals have been made. However, efficient and scalable solutions for regeneration of multiple parallel wavelength channels have been elusive, constituting a key challenge, which must be overcome for optical regeneration to have any prospect of being adapted in actual communication systems. Here we report a scalable wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) regeneration scheme for phase only regeneration, which satisfies the multichannel requirement, using a set of optical time-lens-based Fourier processors combined with a single phase-sensitive amplifier (PSA). We describe the concept theoretically, and experimentally demonstrate simultaneous regeneration of 16 WDM channels with 50-GHz spacing, each carrying 10-Gbit/s DPSK phase-modulated data. The proposed scheme relies on ultrafast broadband optical processing and is inherently scalable in modulation speed and channel number.

We propose a novel and strikingly simple design for all-optical bit-rate-transparent RZ-to-NRZ conversion based on optical phase filtering. The proposed concept is experimentally validated through format conversion of a 640 Gbit/s coherent RZ signal to NRZ signal.

We demonstrate phase-regeneration of phase unlocked OTDM-DPSK serial signals in a single phase sensitive amplifier through optical cross-phase modulation. The BER of an 8×10 Gbit/s OTDM-DPSK signal is improved by 2 orders of magnitude.

We review recent progress in the use of time lens based optical Fourier transformation for advanced all-optical signal processing. A novel time lens based complete optical Fourier transformation (OFT) technique is introduced. This complete OFT is based on two quadratic phase-modulation stages using four-wave mixing (FWM), separated by a dispersive medium, which enables time-to-frequency and frequency-to-time conversions simultaneously, thus performing an exchange between the temporal and spectral profiles of the input signal. Using the proposed complete OFT, several advanced all-optical signal processing schemes for spectrally-efficient systems and networks have been achieved, including all-optical generation, detection and format conversion of spectrally-efficient signals. The spectrally-efficient signals in this paper mainly refer to efficiently multiplexed signals with a high symbol rate per Hz, such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), Nyquist wavelength-division multiplexing (Nyquist-WDM) and Nyquist optical time division multiplexing (Nyquist-OTDM) signals.

QPSK regeneration without active phase stabilization is investigated in numerical simulations. We propose an improved scheme for phase-locking free QPSK regeneration showing significant improvements in the error vector magnitude of the signal.

An overview of recent progress on time lens based advanced optical signal processing is presented, with a special focus on all-optical ultrafast 640 Gbit/s all-channel serial-to-parallel conversion, and scalable WDM regeneration.

We demonstrate simultaneous OTDM demultiplexing of all 16-channels for 160-Gbit/s DPSK and 320-Gbit/s DQPSK signals based on complete OFT. Furthermore, numerical simulations show promising results for extending the proposed technique to spectrally efficient Nyquist-OTDM.

We review recent progress in the use of time lens based optical Fourier transformation for advanced optical signal processing, with focus on all-optical generation, detection and format conversion of spectrally-efficient OFDM and N-WDM signals.

We propose a serial-to-parallel conversion scheme based on complete OFT, allowing simultaneous conversion of all channels. We demonstrate all 32-channel simultaneous OTDM to WDM conversion of 320-Gbit/s DPSK and of 640-Gbit/s DQPSK signal, respectively.

We propose a scheme for phase regeneration of optical binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) data signals based on phase sensitive amplification without active phase-locking. A delay interferometer (DI) is used to convert a BPSK signal impaired by noise to an amplitude modulated signal followed by cross-phase modulation (XPM) in a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) which transfers the data modulation from the amplitude modulated signal to the phase of a locally generated carrier. By placing the HNLF in a loop a stable phase relation is maintained relative to a set of counter propagating locally generated phase-locked pumps. As a result, active phase-stabilization is avoided. A proof-of-principle experiment is carried out with a dual-pump degenerate phase sensitive amplifier (PSA), demonstrating regeneration for a 10 Gb/s non-return-to-zero differential BPSK (NRZ-DPSK) data signal degraded by a sinusoidal phase-noise tone. Receiver sensitivity improvements of 3.5 dB are achieved at a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10-9. Additionally, numerical simulations are performed comparing the idealized regenerator performance in the presence of sinusoidal phase modulation as well as Gaussian phase-noise.

We propose a novel QPSK regenerator scheme based on phase sensitive amplification of a pre-conditioned signal avoiding active phase-locking. Signal pre-conditioning is demonstrated experimentally with error-free (BER < 10-9) performance for a 10-Gbaud QPSK signal.

We propose and demonstrate a novel PSK regenerator based on phase sensitive amplification without active phase-locking. The scheme is applied to regenerate a phase noise degraded 10-Gbit/s DPSK signal, improving receiver sensitivity by 3.5 dB.

We propose an all-optical ultra-high-speed OFDM to Nyquist-WDM conversion scheme based on complete OFT. An 8-subcarrier 640 Gbit/s DPSK OFDM super-channel is converted to eight 80-Gbit/s Nyquist-WDM channels with BER <10−9 performance for all channels.

We propose a novel all-optical WDM regeneration scheme for DPSK signals based on optical Fourier transformation and phase sensitive amplification. Phase regeneration of a WDM signal consisting of 4x10-Gbit/s phase noise degraded DPSK channels is demonstrated for the first time.

We propose a DWDM-to-Nyquist channel conversion scheme based on complete Optical Fourier Transformation and optical Nyquist filtering. We demonstrate conversion from 50-GHz-grid 16×10 Gbit/s DPSK DWDM to a 160-Gbit/s Nyquist channel (0.9 symbol/s/Hz spectral efficiency) with 1.4 dB power penalty.

We propose a novel simple all-optical OFDM transmission system based on time-domain OFT using time-lenses. A real-time 160 Gbit/s DPSK OFDM transmission with 16 decorrelated data subcarriers is successfully demonstrated over 100 km.

We demonstrate an AO-OFDM system with a WSS-based transmitter and time-lens based receiver for spectral magnification, achieving BER~10-9 for a 28×10 Gbit/s DPSK AO-OFDM signal. Furthermore, the receiver performance for DPSK and DQPSK is investigated using Monte Carlo simulations.