HYBRID WAVELENGTH CONVERTER

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To increase an extinction ratio while decreasing polarization dependency. SOLUTION: A Mach-Zehnder type optical interference circuit 120 is formed on a platform 110; two semiconductor optical amplifiers(SOA) 131, 133 are packaged in an arm waveguide 123; and two semiconductor optical amplifiers 132, 134 are packaged in an arm waveguide 124. Since two pieces of SOAs are arranged in a single arm waveguide in this XPM-type wavelength converter 100, an overall amplification factor can be increased while keeping the lengths of the individual SOAs to the extent not to cause distortion. Thus, since distortion is not caused, the polarization dependency can be reduced and the overall amplification factor is increased, therefore, the extinction ratio is increased, and signal light intensity and control light intensity can be decreased.