Methodologies for more efficient Raman amplification and a more suitable modulation format for 40 Gbit/s WDM unrepeatered transmission are investigated. Management of the fiber effective area is proposed to realize low noise distributed Raman amplification. An Aeff management technique in which low-Aeff fiber is located in a median section instead of the last section, was confirmed numerically and experimentally to improve the OSNR and Q-factor. Carrier-suppressed-return-to-zero (CS-RZ) modulation has the advantage of reducing fiber-nonlinearity effects and permitting denser multiplexing of the wavelengths. 40 Gbit/s 32-channel unrepeatered WDM transmission over 202 km was demonstrated employing the proposed methodologies.

The design aspects of the bulk InGaAsP semiconductor optical amplifier integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer (SOA-MZI) optimized for 40 Gbps-NRZ all optical wavelength conversion are described. The dimensions of the SOA active waveguide have been optimized for fast gain recovery by maximizing the gain and adjusting the wavelength-converted NRZ waveforms. Submicron-width buried heterostructure (BH) SOA waveguides were fabricated successfully and showed little leakage current. The experimental wavelength-converted optical waveform agreed well to the numerical simulations, and mask-compliant 40 G-NRZ wavelength-converted waveform was obtained by the optimized SOA-MZI. 40 G-NRZ full C-band operation and polarization-insensitive operation of SOA-MZI were also achieved.

We present an 82.5GS/s over-sampling based burst-mode clock and data recovery (BM-CDR) IC chip-set comprising an 82.5GS/s over-sampling IC using 8×10.3GHz multi-phase clocks and a dual-rate data selector logic IC to realize the 10.3Gb/s and 1.25Gb/s dual-rate burst-mode fast-lock operation required for 10-Gigabit based fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) services supported by 10-Gigabit Ethernet passive optical network (10G-EPON) systems. As the key issue for designing the proposed 82.5GS/s BM-CDR, a fresh study of the optimum number of multi-phase clocks, which is equivalent to the sampling resolution, is undertaken, and details of the 10.3Gb/s cum 1.25/Gb/s dual-rate optimum phase data selection logic based on a blind phase decision algorithm, which can realize a full single-platform dual-rate BM-CDR, ate also presented. By using the power of the proposed 82.5GS/s over-sampling BM-CDR in cooperation with our dual-rate burst-mode optical receiver, we further demonstrated that a short dual-rate and burst-mode preamble of 256ns supporting receiver settling and CDR recovery times was successfully achieved, while obtaining high receiver sensitivities of -31.6dBm at 10.3Gb/s and -34.6dBm at 1.25Gb/s and a high pulse-width distortion tolerance of +/-0.53UI, which are superior to the 10G-EPON standard.

The crosstalk and the distortion of the optical pulse due to the random polarization coupling is calculated for the birefringent optical fiber from the random mechanical bending and twist, by using the generalized expression of the coupling coefficients. A long-tailed" crosstalk pulse is found to appear as a result of the random polarization coupling. The improvement of the polarization instability from the random deformation by increasing the birefringence is discussed.

Optical transmission systems with large capacity employing wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) techniques are now widely under development. Optical amplifiers, especially Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA's), are vital components for such transmission systems. Optical amplifiers in WDM systems are employed as common amplifiers for all WDM'ed optical carriers, therefore, change in power of a specific carrier gives rise to gain fluctuation of the remaining carriers. In this paper, we discuss about automatic gain control (AGC) of EDFA for WDM'ed optical carriers under transient gain saturation. Two methods have been reported to perform AGC, i.e., pump feedback control method and compensation light feedback control method. Theory and experimental results have been already reported on pump feedback control method. Here, theory has been generalized to be applicable for compensation light feedback method including schematics with amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) as a probe light to measure the gain of EDFA. Experimental results have confirmed the analysis. Good performance has been obtained for both methods with simple electronic circuits and ASE has been found to work as an excellent probe light source.