All Optical 3R Regeneration and Wavelength Convertion

We experimentally demonstrate the possibility to realize an all-optical 3R regenerator wavelength converter, based on a three-stage cascade configuration. A multi-wave-mixing based on the phase modulation of an auxiliary optical carrier induced by a two-signals interaction is used to perform simultaneously reshaping, re-amplification and wavelength conversion of a propagated signal. A fiber ring based unit is used to perform the all-optical timing extraction while an orthodox four-wave-mixing process inside a dispersion-shifted fiber is adopted for the retiming process. The work is patent pending.