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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Fujitsu Laboratories and the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI today announced the development of a new method to simultaneously convert the wavelengths of wavelength-division-multiplexed signals necessary for optical communication relay nodes in future wavelength-division-multiplexed optical networks [phys.org], and have successfully tested the method using high-bandwidth signal transmission in the range of 1 Tbps.

In the conventional optical wavelength conversion method each individual optical wavelength is converted into an electrical signal and re-transmitted at a new wavelength, which is impractical for terabit-class processing as each wavelength requires its own O/E/O circuit. Using the new technology, the optical wavelength conversion and the polarization state are controlled at the same time, so simultaneous wavelength conversion of wide-band optical signals can be achieved without restrictions on the wavelengths of the optical input signal or the modulation formats. As a result, processing can be achieved with a single wavelength converter, regardless of the number of wavelengths multiplexed. Therefore, considering optical signals in excess of 1 Tbps multiplexed from ten wavelengths, for example, the new method can process them using just one-tenth of the power or less compared to previous technologies that required a separate circuit to convert each wavelength into an electrical signal and back.

The researchers assert the method will boost signal throughput.

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