We propose a collaborative research program to design and build a novel device - a multi-channel all-optical regenerator with a 2R (reamplification and reshaping) capability. Until now, simultaneous all-optical regeneration of many wavelength-division multiplexed channels has remained a formidable challenge, because the operation of all-optical regenerators fundamentally relies on strong nonlinear optical effects that lead to debilitating interaction among the channels. In the proposed multi-channel regenerator, we employ a dispersion map that combines sections of high-normal-dispersion nonlinear fiber and dispersion compensators with a spectrally periodic group delay. Such a map reduces the detrimental inter-channel nonlinear interaction while maintaining the intensity of the beneficial intra-channel effects at a proper level. From the mathematical standpoint, the proposed device requires the development of a novel theory of the intense pulse propagation in a modulationally stable fiber with periodic dispersion compensation. This propagation occurs in a parameter regime that is different from the well-researched regimes of both the intense pulse propagation in fibers with small constant dispersion and the dispersion-managed soliton propagation in ransmission systems. Our theoretical results will assist in designing an experimental device prototype.
The realization of the proposed multi-channel 2R regenerator will enable elimination of a large number of expensive optical-to-electrical-to-optical converters employed in modern fiber-optical communication networks. The replacement of these converters by optical regenerators will make the optical communication bandwidth significantly more affordable.
