Cascaded nonlinear-optical loop mirror-based all-optical PAM regenerator

Abstract

An all-optical regeneration scheme based on cascaded nonlinear-optical loop mirrors (NOLMs) for pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) signals is proposed. The optimal working point (WP) of everyNOLMcan be set by means of the normalized power transfer function (NPTF) and normalized differential gain (NDG). As examples, the PAM-4 and PAM-8 regenerations based on cascaded two-NOLMs are demonstrated by optimizing the splitting ratios of the optical couplers and the gain coefficient of the inter-stage matching amplifier, achieving the Q-factor improvements of 25.32dB and 21.18dB, respectively. Compared to the conventional regenerator scheme, a 1.69dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain is achieved due to the flat power response within the regenerative range.