Design Considerations for Polarization-Independent All-Optical Retiming Based on Cross-Phase Modulation and Spectral Slicing

Polarization-independent all-optical retiming is demonstrated experimentally at 10 Gb/s using a self-pulsating distributed feedback laser, cross-phase modulation in a highly nonlinear fiber, and spectral slicing. With careful attention to key design parameters, excellent performance is achieved without additional complexity compared to a conventional polarization-dependent implementation.