Phase-Incoherent DQPSK Wavelength Conversion Using a Photonic Integrated Circuit

We investigate the performance of a large-scale, silica-on-silicon photonic integrated circuit for multiformat signal processing, and we experimentally demonstrate wavelength-conversion of (differential) quadrature phase-shift keying [(D)QPSK] signals. The circuit exploits phase-incoherent techniques to decode the input signal and to phase remodulate two phase-shift-keying components before combining them in a common QPSK output stream. Error-free wavelength conversion with 4-dB power penalty is reported at 44 Gb/s.