Phase-and-amplitude regeneration of differential phase-shift keyed signals using a phase-sensitive amplifier

DPSK phase- and- amplitude regeneration with a NOLM- based phase- sensitive amplifier is demonstrated experimentally. For a highly degraded input signal, maximum differential phase errors were reduced from 82 degrees to 41 degrees, while the SNR was improved by more than 5- dB. Differential phase Q- factor improvement was better than 6- dB. The PSA was operated free of excess noise due to stimulated Brillouin scattering by using a binary phase modulated pulse train as the pump. The impact of pump fluctuations on regeneration performance is clarified. The regenerated signal was characterized by measurement of the constellation diagram by linear optical sampling, giving the first directly measured evidence of DPSK phase regeneration. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.