Design and performance analysis of wavelength conversion based on four wave mixing in SOA for all optical WDM/ DWDM network

Contention in the intermediate nodes of an all optical network can be resolved by employing wavelength converters. Different types of nonlinear effects are present in an optical fiber network. Generally presence of these nonlinear effects degrades the overall performance of a network. However few nonlinearities may be used for performance enhancement as well. Four wave mixing (FWM) is a third-order Kerr type nonlinearity of an optical fiber. FWM occurs when two or more different wavelengths launched into a fiber and because of electric susceptibility new wavelengths generate. These new sideband frequencies may be used for wavelength domain contention resolution in all optical WDM network. In this paper a simulation based model has been developed for the generation of new side band frequencies using FWM. The new sideband frequencies have been used for implementation of wavelength converter in order to realize partial wavelength conversion in an all optical WDM / DWDM network.