A compact nonlinear fiber-based optical autocorrelation peak discriminator

We experimentally demonstrate a nonlinear fiber-based optical autocorrelation peak discriminator. The approach exploits four-wave mixing in a 37-cm highly-nonlinear bismuth-oxide fiber that provides a passive and compact means for rejecting cross-correlation peaks. The autocorrelation peak discriminator plays an important role in improving the detection of optical CDMA signals. Eye diagrams and bit-error rates are measured at different power ratios. Significant receiver sensitivity improvements are obtained and error-floors are removed. The experimental results show that the autocorrelation peak discriminator works well even when the amplitudes of individual cross-correlation peaks are higher than that of the autocorrelation peak.