Experimental study on an all-optical switching based on MF-NOLM

Abstract:

In this paper, the experiment on an all-optical switching is reported based on a microstructure fiber(MF)-nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM). In the experiment, a 25-meter-long MF (γ=36W⁻¹km⁻¹@1550 nm) is used as a nonlinear medium of the nonlinear optical loop mirror and the input signal is generated by a 10 GHz tunable picosecond laser source, with a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 2 ps and centered at 1550 nm. With the increase of input power, a π nonlinear phase shift is obtained by a 40/60 coupler in the experiment, but the same result can not be found by a 48/52 coupler. Additionally, the switching devices can also be used as an all-optical regeneration. This work is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China(2003CB314900), the Key grant Project of Chinese Ministry of Education (NO. 104046) and the National 863 High Technology Project of China (2003AA311010)