Optical Noise and Dispersion Monitoring with SOA-Based Optical 2R Regenerator

Optical performance monitoring is demonstrated using the nonlinear response of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The monitoring device is derived from a recently proposed all-optical wavelength converter and is well suited for use in transparent networks. We show experimental results for both optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitoring and dispersion monitoring at 10 and 40 Gb/s data rates. The performance monitor signal correlates with the Q-factor and can provide an unambiguous signal quality measure with potential application to QoS and fault management.