Chalcogenide single mode fibre optical regenerator
We investigated the feasibility of all-optical regeneration based on self-phase modulation in single mode As2Se3 chalcogenide fiber. By combining the chalcogenide fiber with a bandpass filter, we achieved a near step-like power transfer function with no pulse distortion. The device was shown to operate with 5.8 ps duration pulses, thus demonstrating the feasibility of this device operating with high bit-rate data signals. These results were achieved with pulse peak powers <10 W in a fully passive device, including only 2.8 m of chalcogenide fiber. We obtain an excellent agreement between theory and experiment and show that both the high nonlinearity of the chalcogenide glass along with its high normal dispersion near 1550 nm enables a significant device length reduction in comparison with silica-based devices, without compromise on the performance. We find that even for only a few meters of fibre, the large normal dispersion of the chalcogenide glass inhibits spectral oscillations that would appear with self-phase modulation alone. We measured the two photon absorption attenuation coefficient and found that it advantageously affects the device transfer function.

Optical monitoring
The optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) is a quantitative measurement that reveals the quality of a signal. We recently demonstrated a simple and effective method to measure the OSNR of a signal by using an all-optical nonlinear loop mirror. This innovative solution processes the signal without resorting to the usual high data rate electronics. These results were presented as a post-deadline paper at the Lasers and Electro-Optics Annual meeting in Sydney, October 2005.