A 40 Gb/s InP-monolithically integrated DPSK-demodulator enhanced by cross-gain-compression in an SOA

We fabricated and experimentally tested a novel monolithically integrated Indium Phosphide optical circuit for differential phase-shift keying demodulation, which is robust to noise degradations of the received signal. The circuit consists of a one-bit-delay interferometer that demodulates the incoming signal and a semiconductor optical amplifier where the constructive and destructive demodulated outputs synchronously counter-propagate experiencing a reshaping effect. The novel optical circuit has been fabricated for 40 Gb/s signals, and the amplitude signal restoration is demonstrated by comparing the obtained output eye diagrams with those of a commercial fiber-based demodulator. We find a net improvement in the signal to noise ratio when the circuit is fed with a noisy input signal.