New optical routing technique with a subcarrier clock controlled wavelength converter

We demonstrate wavelength conversion and routing at 2.5 Gb/s over 100-km fiber links using a wavelength converter based on a time-to-wavelength mapped mode-locked laser. Wavelength tuning is controlled by an RF clock multiplexed as a subcarrier on a transmitted nonreturn-to-zero signal. Wavelength conversion of a 1550-nm input signal to nine output wavelengths spanning a range of 16 nm is demonstrated. The RF clock rate is approximately 10 GHz.