Recirculating Loop Testbed For All Optical 2R Regeneration

This Master's thesis deals with building a recirculating loop testbed intended for proof-of-principle demonstration of multichannel all-optical 2R regenerator proposed in [1]. The proposed multichannel 2R regeneration scheme uses multiple highly-nonlinear-fiber (HNLF) sections separated by dispersion-compensating periodic-group-delay devices (PGDDs). The high cost and limited availability of these devices restrict us to working with just one PGDD, instead of 16 required by the scheme. Thus, for the proof-of-principle demonstration of the regenerator we have to put a single PGDD and a piece of HNLF into a recirculating loop through which light will circulate for required number of times. In this thesis, we build and experimentally demonstrate the operation of the recirculating loop. This work has required building RZ and NRZ transmitter modules, coupling standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) to dispersion-compensating fiber (DCF, which we use as HNLF) and finally using them in the loop setup along with the other lab components and devices. The thesis describes the two transmitter sub-systems that we have built using JDS and Lucent modulators. We also discuss in detail the optimized bridge splicing technique used to couple SSMF to DCF. Finally, we present the design and experimental realization of our recirculating-loop testbed and trigger settings for the successful operation of the loop.