Fiber link tests of wavelength reuse after amplitude erasure in semiconductor optical amplifier

ABSTRACT Propagation in a 25‐km fiber link with wavelength reuse based on amplitude modulation erasure by deep saturated ultralong semiconductor optical amplifier is demonstrated up to 12.5 Gb/s. Downstream signals with modulation extinction ratio (ER) up to 10 dB were tested in links with standard and dispersion compensated fibers. The impact of bit rate and input ER over the wavelength reuse performance is investigated, including tests at diverse wavelengths to induce residual dispersion impairments. Despite the inherent spectral broadening occurring in the erasure process the upstream signals have good quality even after dispersive fiber links, as evidenced by BER characterization. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:132–137, 2015