Noise influence in nonlinear optical loop mirror compression performance

Short pulsed laser sources have recently been under investigation for applications in high speed optical communications systems. A key issue to achieve high quality reliable short pulses is the need to compress and improve the shape of the pulse train. Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirrors (NOLM) provides both compression and reshaping of the optical pulses. The present work turns the attention to the influence of noise in the compression behavior of NOLM. Characteristics such as compression factor, signal to noise ratio, dynamic RIN level, BER and timing jitter are considered. The results obtained will be the basis for the design of a compact high quality ultrashort optical pulse source at 40 GB/s with monolithic semiconductor compressor. This device is under investigation within the MONOPLA European Project.