All-optical wavelength conversion in optical multicarrier networks

The authors analyze the use of all optical wavelength conversion in the optical layer of a high-capacity transport network and compare different technological solutions. The analysis is based on the evaluation of the transmission performance of a generic signal path through the network. At least two technologies have been discovered allowing the realization of all-optical wavelength converters suitable for use in the considered application, providing high performance. In particular, for networks covering long distances, wavelength conversion based on four-wave-mixing in semiconductor amplifiers seems to be a very interesting solution.