40-Gb/s All-Optical Serial-to-Parallel Conversion Based on a Single SOA

An all-optical serial-to-parallel converter (AOSPC) was experimentally demonstrated. It could potentially be used to process variable-length optical packets. This scheme mainly consists of wavelength interleaved pulse generation and the sequential multiwavelength conversion (SMWC). The SMWC is based on a single semiconductor optical amplifier. In this research, a 40-Gb/s serial optical signal was converted into four-channel 10-Gb/s parallel optical signals. This scheme has the advantages of a simple system configuration, integration potential, and polarization independency. In addition, the AOSPC is suitable for an input signal with a low optical signal-to-noise ratio and at the same time can regenerate degraded serial signals.