Characterization of a Turbo-Switch SOA Wavelength Converter Using Spectrographic Pulse Measurement

We use the frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) technique to determine the pulsewidth and chirp characteristics of wavelength-converted pulses from a turbo-switch and asymmetrical Mach-Zehnder filter combination under a variety of operating conditions. The output pulses were found to be near transform limited and had a high tolerance to line rate and input power variations.