JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 16, ISSUE 1, SEPTEMBER 2012 1

WDM Transmission after All-Optical NRZ to CSRZ and RZ to CSRZ Format Conversion Using an SOA-NOLM
Mousaab M. Nahas
Abstract This paper presents experimental results for the performance of a CSRZ format after all-optical conversion from NRZ and RZ formats using a semiconductor laser amplifier based nonlinear optical loop mirror (SOA-NOLM). The paper starts with showing successful conversion results for 4 10 Gbit/s WDM signals with 100 GHz spacing. The optical conversion bandwidth and limitations for the all-optical converter device is also presented. The paper then demonstrates transmission results over a 195 km fiber span for the all-optical converted CSRZ signal and its original NRZ/RZ signals. The receiver sensitivity for the converted four wavelengths is compared with the sensitivity for the original NRZ and RZ counterparts. The -9 paper proves that the power required at the receiver for 10 BER is less for the converted CSRZ format in all signals. We believe that such an investigation is useful since the all-optical devices are now considered to be of key importance in current and future all-optical networks. Index Terms All-optical processing, nonlinear optical loop mirror, modulation format conversion, carrier-suppressed RZ modulation format, WDM transmission.

1 INTRODUCTION
t has already been proven that the performance of the optical fiber communication system largely depends on the modulation format [1]-[6]. In fact, the best modulation format is dictated by many system parameters such as system length, fiber type, dispersion management and the optical bandwidth [7]. In general, the carriersuppressed return-to-zero (CSRZ) modulation format can deliver excellent transmission performance due to its high tolerance to nonlinear effects and chromatic dispersion compared to that of the conventional non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ) formats [8]. The CSRZ reduces the main carrier component of the signal, which carries most of the power in the NRZ and RZ formats but contains no useful information. This results in that the input power into the fiber is reduced, allowing the use of optical amplifiers in transmission with lower nonlinear effects. Furthermore, the CSRZ also narrows the optical spectrum, thus the signal becomes more tolerant to chromatic dispersion with higher spectral efficiency [9]. For WDM applications, CSRZ offers better performance because it is less sensitive to four-wave-mixing (FWM) caused by the WDM channels interaction [10]. However, CSRZ signal generation is more complex than the conventional NRZ and RZ since at least one additional modulator is required [11]. This modulator can be a LiNbO3 MZ modulator which is an electro-optic device. Recently, electro-optic devices have been thought to be replaced by all

optical devices which have been considered to be of key importance in all-optical networks where the signal remains in the optical domain all over the network without being converted to electronics [12]. This indeed can increase the cost effectiveness of the WDM network. As a result of this, all-optical signal processing including switching, demultiplexing, signal regeneration and format conversion have received much interest in a recent research [13]-[15], where this paper will consider the alloptical format conversion from NRZ and RZ to CSRZ due to the advantages mentioned above. In particular, the paper aims to examine the transmission performance of 4 10 Gbit/s WDM CSRZ signals after all-optical format conversion, where single-channel results for the same device have already been presented in [16]. The CSRZ signal performance will be compared with that of the original NRZ and RZ signals, so any improvement being noticed on the converted signal behavior would encourage the operators to accommodate all-optical modulators in place of the conventional electro-optic devices that exist in the current WDM networks.

1.1 NRZ/RZ to CSRZ Format Conversion

The conversion from NRZ and RZ to CSRZ is conventionally implemented as shown in Fig. 1 [17], where the electro-optic MZ modulator is biased at the minimum power transmission point. An electrical clock with half the data frequency is inserted into the modulator to modulate the input NRZ or RZ optical data. As a result, the optical field changes the polarity for every other pulse, i.e. the phase alternates systematically between 0

M.M. Nahas is with the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering North Jeddah, King Abdulaziz University, KSA.

2012 JOT www.journaloftelecommunications.co.uk

and from pulse to pulse. Therefore, the time-averaged optical field is zero, and the spectrum shows no carrier where the two characteristic frequency components will be at ; since is half the frequency of the data [4], [17].

Fig. 1. NRZ/RZ to CSRZ conversion principle.

the clockwise and counter-clockwise signals is 2. A control pulse, which is a sinusoidal optical clock at half the data channel clock frequency i.e. 5 GHz, is injected to saturate the SOA hence modulates the refractive index of the SOAs active region periodically. At the output of the loop mirror, when the clockwise and the counter clockwise signals are recombined, their phase modulation is converted into amplitude modulation. Thus, the output data is alternating between 0 and at adjacent bits; hence the input NRZ or RZ data signal is converted into CSRZ format. Paper [17] has also shown the conversion of a CSRZ back to the original NRZ and RZ by following the same principle. However, if the control pulse is absent, the clockwise and counter-clockwise signals will destructively interfere at the output of the loop mirror. If the phase difference is adjusted from 2 to , the interference will be constructive, thus the input NRZ or RZ signal is switched out of the SOA-NOLM without changing its modulation format [20].

1.2 All-Optical Format Conversion

(a)

WDM CONVERSION EXPERIMENT

In this part, we investigate the feasibility of the SOANOLM converter in converting 4 10 Gbit/s WDM signals from NRZ/RZ to CSRZ formats, and then explore the available optical conversion bandwidth for this device and its limitations.

2.1 Conversion Experimental Setup

(b)

Fig. 3. Experimental setup for WDM conversion.

Fig. 2. (a) SOA-NOLM converter. (b) All-optical format conversion.

The all-optical conversion from NRZ and RZ to CSRZ was first shown in [18] using a semiconductor optical amplifier based nonlinear optical loop mirror (SOANOLM), which is sometimes referred to as SLALOM (semiconductor laser amplifier in a loop mirror) [16], [19]. The all-optical conversion is implemented as shown in Fig. 2, which applies to 10 Gbit/s data. The SOA-NOLM is biased at around 2, i.e. the phase difference between

The experimental setup for all-optical conversion is shown in Fig. 3. To generate the 4 10 Gbit/s WDM data signals, four CW laser sources, starting at 1554.7 nm with 31 an even separation of 100 GHz, are applied with a 2 1 PRBS via one LiNbO3 modulator for the NRZ format, and two LiNbO3 modulators for the RZ format. The pattern generator is driven by an external clock reference of 10.7 GHz where no forward error correction is applied. The resultant 4 10 Gbit/s WDM data stream is amplified and launched into the converter. The SOA-NOLM comprises of a 50/50 coupler with polarization controllers (PCs) on each arm, a 50/50 coupler on the clockwise path and an SOA being offset from the centre by a 140 ps on counter-clockwise direction using variable optical delay line on the clockwise arm. The SOA provides a peak fiberto-fiber gain of 20 dB, and a saturation output power of 3.85 dBm when biased at 200 mA. For the control pulse, a CW DFB laser with a wavelength of 1542.3 nm is modulated at 5.35 GHz, delayed and coupled via a 50/50 coupler into the SOA-NOLM at a power of 3.2 dBm. A vari-

able optical delay line, to adjust the control pulse arrival time relative to the data, controls the phase seen by the clockwise and counter clockwise data at the SOA. On the output of the SOA-NOLM, a tunable grating band-pass filter with a 0.24 nm 3 dB bandwidth and a 7 dB insertion loss is used to pass the data traffic signal while the 1542.3 nm control wavelength is filtered out. Two circulators are used within the system; one before the SOA-NOLM to prevent its reflected signal from interfering with the incoming data, and one after the SOA-NOLM to prevent any reflected light from re-entering the loop mirror that can change the whole characteristics of the device. On the output of the SOA-NOLM, a WDM coupler, whose characteristics are shown in Fig. 4, is used to extract the 1542.3 nm control wavelength whilst allowing the WDM data to propagate along the fiber. It is seen from Fig. 4 that the control signal can be suppressed by approximately 37 dB through the WDM coupler while the whole WDM data pass without considerable attenuation.
0 -10

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5 0 -5 -10 -15 -20 -25 -30 1554.3

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1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580
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Fig. 4. WDM coupler spectrum, depicting the transmitted and extracted wavelengths.

-15 -20 -25

2.2 Conversion Results and Analysis

Successful conversion results have been obtained from running the above experiment as shown in Fig. 5, which presents the spectra and corresponding eye diagrams for all WDM signals before and after conversion in both NRZ and RZ cases. It can be clearly seen that the main component of the NRZ and RZ signals is suppressed after conversion as in (b) and (d), where the difference between the main two characteristic components in the converted CSRZ is 0.08 nm (10 GHz) in all signals. The converted signals are slightly broadened compared to the original signals and that can be due to the ASE noise and some other undesired nonlinear effects such as cross-gain modulation and FWM exist in the SOA. Having achieved a conversion for the WDM signals, it is necessary to explore the maximum bandwidth of such a converter. This enables determining the maximum number of WDM channels that can be converted via this device without considerable penalty. For this test, the WDM coupler is replaced by a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) with 3 dB bandwidth of ~1.1 nm and isolation of ~19.8 dB as shown in Fig. 6 to reflect the control wavelength at 1542.3 nm.

-30 1554.3

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5 0 -5 -10 -15 -20 -25 -30 1554.3

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Fig. 5. OSA Spectra (power in dBm vs wavelength in nm using 0.06 nm OSA resolution bandwidth) and corresponding eye diagrams for WDM signals. (a) NRZ; (b) CSRZ converted from NRZ; (c) RZ; (d) CSRZ converted from RZ.

The reason for using the FBG is that the transmission bandwidth of the WDM coupler used before is a small fraction of that for the whole C-band wavelength region.

This basically allows some wavelengths to pass through which in turn disables finding the entire conversion bandwidth. Again, the reflected signal from the FBG is prevented from re-entering the SOA-NOLM by the second circulator.

device with the suppression performance of the WDM coupler but with the bandwidth of the fiber Bragg grating could be used to increase the bandwidth of the SOANOLM converter by at least 2 nm.

3 WDM TRANSMISSION EXPERIMENT

In this part, we examine the transmission performance of the all-optical converted CSRZ signal against its original NRZ and RZ counterparts over a 195 km fiber span.

Fig. 6. Spectrum of the fiber Bragg grating.

Fig. 8. Experimental setup for WDM transmission, depicting the SOA-NOLM converter and the 195 km fiber link.

3.1 Transmission Experimental Setup

The transmission experiment setup is shown in Fig. 8. After conversion to CSRZ, the WDM data signals are post-amplified to 4.6 dBm per channel (i.e. ~10.6 dBm in total) before being launched into 195 km fiber span. This power is relatively high and has been chosen to ensure nonlinear effect during transmission. Using this, it is possible to compare the tolerance of the converted and unconverted signals towards nonlinearities. The fiber span consists of two dispersion-managed sections of SMFDCF-SMF. The first consists of 40.7 km of SMF, 16.5 km of DCF with -1383 ps/nm and 41.8 km of SMF. The second section has 42.9 km SMF, 15.2 km DCF with -1387 ps/nm and 38 km SMF. The SMFs have 0.2 dB/km attenuation coefficient and dispersion of 17 ps/nm/km at 1550 nm. The losses are compensated using two C-band erbiumdoped fiber amplifier (EDFA) repeaters in each section. The EDFA denoted A in the figure has a 30 dB maximum small signal gain and the EDFA denoted B has a 40 dB maximum small signal gain. The noise Fig. is ~5 dB for each EDFA. An ASE filter is used after the last SMF span to remove the accumulated ASE noise outside the signals band including the gain peak at 1530 nm. At the receiver, the WDM signals are pr-amplified and then demultiplexed by a tunable band-pass grating filter with a 0.24 nm 3 dB bandwidth and a 7 dB insertion loss. The individual channels are then isolated by a 10 GHz clock recovery unit and detected by the BERT. An optical attenuator is used after the band-pass filter for receiver sensitivity measurements.

Fig. 7. The spectral outputs taken after the SOA-NOLM for four arbitrary wavelengths spanning the available conversion bandwidth of the converter for RZ to CSRZ conversion.

Fig. 7 depicts the spectral outputs taken after the SOANOLM for four arbitrary wavelengths spanning the available conversion bandwidth of the converter for RZ to CSRZ conversion. The lowest and the highest wavelengths at which the signal is fully converted to CSRZ with BER 10-9 are 1531.4 nm and 1562.2 nm, respectively. This means that the signal will be either unconverted fully or converted with considerable error-rate (>10-9) outside this region. In fact, this bandwidth is limited by the active region of the SOA as well as the wavelength of the control pulse used to saturate the SOA in the SOA-NOLM. So even with the 19.8 dB isolation provided by the fiber Bragg grating, a peak 2 dB above the noise floor at 1542.3 nm can be clearly seen in the spectrum. This partial suppression of the switching signal reduces the conversion region by approximately 1 nm either side of the control signal resulting in a total available bandwidth of 28.8 nm (depicted as a lined block in Fig. 7). However, the WDM coupler which was used in place of the fiber FBG earlier can increase the suppression of the control pulse by an additional 17.2 dB albeit at the expense of available bandwidth, as the 3 dB cut-off for the transmission port on the WDM is at 1551 nm. Ideally a

verted carrier-suppressed formats decays slower than that of their original counterparts. Therefore, at a BER of 10-5, the improvement in the required received power can increase from 0.9 dB to 1.2 dB for NRZ case and from 0.5 dB to 0.9 dB for RZ. This would imply that the receiver sensitivity improvement at 10-9 BER could be further increased if forward error correction (FEC) is used to correct errors at 10-5 error-rate. However, the larger improvement in the NRZ case was due to the entire change of data format, i.e. NRZ to RZ with the carrier being suppressed. In RZ to CSRZ case, the signal is still return-tozero after conversion but its carrier was suppressed. This implies that in NRZ case, part of the improvement was attained before transmission just because the NRZ has become CSRZ. In fact, the receiver sensitivities at the output of the SOA-NOLM were measured without transmission (i.e. back-to-back) for all formats using singlechannel at 1555.2 nm. It was found that in the case of NRZ to CSRZ, the received power required for the converted CSRZ for 10-9 BER was less than that for the un(a) converted NRZ by 0.5 dB. In the case of RZ to CSRZ, the converted and unconverted formats had almost the same 1E-05 required power for 10-9 BER. This implies that the transmission improved the sensitivity of the CSRZ format by 1E-06 0.4 dB in the case of NRZ, and 0.5 dB in the case of RZ format. However, this result would indicate that the 1E-07 CSRZ signal can propagate over longer fiber distance with acceptable error-rate in both NRZ and RZ cases if 1E-08 more fiber spans are added to the system or a recirculating loop is used on the testbed [16]. 1E-09 Although the impairments of the SOA-NOLM con-22 -21 -20 -19 -18 -17 verter limits the performance of all formats, the results Received Power (dBm) can still be useful as relative comparisons for the converted and unconverted signals in transmission. Future (b) work may involve optimizing the performance of the loop mirror by using better SOA characteristics. On the 1E-05 other hand, as this particular system configuration presented 195 km strongly dispersion-managed fiber link 1E-06 with ~40 km maximum accumulated dispersion and 100 GHz channel spacing; it did not present huge transmis1E-07 sion penalties for the formats studied. This can be understood as the majority of the nonlinear contribution comes 1E-08 from self-phase modulation (SPM) of the individual signals. More considerable improvement would be expected 1E-09 if the transmission configuration is modified to demon-26 -25 -24 -23 -22 -21 strate significant four-wave mixing (FWM) by using Received Power (dBm) lower local dispersion, e.g. DSF, or higher inter-channel 1=1554.7 nm 2=1555.5 nm 3=1556.3 nm 4=1557.1 nm crosstalk by using lower channel spacing as in DWDM systems, which was not considered as a part of this study. Fig. 9. BER versus received power after 195 km transmission for: (a) Nevertheless, it is still necessary to ensure that the imNRZ (Solid) and its converted CSRZ (Dashed); (b) RZ (Solid) and its provement obtained above is only caused due to the sigconverted CSRZ (Dashed). nal being converted to CSRZ. The other possible reason for such an improvement may be that either the conAs a result, a received power of -17.9 dBm per channel is verted or unconverted signal is being chirped somewhere required to achieve a BER of 10-9 for the NRZ format, within the loop mirror, while the other signal is not being whereas the converted CSRZ format required a lower affected. It also could be that the signals are chirped difpower of -18.8 dBm to attain the same error-rate. For the ferently thus they have different performance after RZ case, the received power required for 10-9 BER is -22 transmission. To examine this, the SOA-NOLM output dBm, while for the converted CSRZ format it is -22.5 signals were passed through three lengths of SMF, where dBm. The slope of the BER-power curve for both con- the broadening of the signal was compared as shown in The main results of the transmission experiment are presented in Fig. 9. It shows the BER performance versus received power after transmission over 195 km span for the four WDM channels in both NRZ and its converted CSRZ (top graph), and RZ and its converted CSRZ (bottom graph). It is essential to mention that, for consistency, the measurements of Fig. 9 were all performed with the loop mirror, i.e. all signals are passed through the SOANOLM thus they have the same environmental condition where any impairment or instability being introduced by the loop mirror is common to all measurements. Therefore, in the case of unconverted NRZ/RZ signal, the signal is passed through the SOA-NOLM with absence of the control pulse and bias at before being transmitted over the fibre span. The SOA-NOLM would switch the input NRZ or RZ signal out without changing its modulation format as explained in section 1.2.
BER

3.2 Transmission Results and Analysis

BER

Fig. 10. The figure shows the results for RZ and its converted CSRZ for one selected wavelength (2=1555.5 nm). In fact, if one signal is positively chirped, it will broaden more rapidly than the other during propagation thus its performance is worse. In contrast, if it is negatively chirped, it will see negative dispersion at the beginning of transmission until its pre-chirp and the dispersioninduced chirp along the fiber cancel each other. This would result in that the signal starts broadening later than the un-chirped signal hence better performance is expected. Fig. 10 shows similar broadening evolution for the converted CSRZ and unconverted RZ pulse, giving that there is no improvement caused by chirp.
55

grateful to Robin Ibbotson who has made valuable contribution to the work of this paper.

REFERENCES
[1] T. Matsuda, A. Naka, and S. Saito, Comparison between NRZ and RZ signal formats for in-line amplifier transmission in the zero-dispersion regime. Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 16, pp. 340-348, 1998 C. Caspar, H.-M. Foisel, A. Gladisch, N. Hanik, F. Kuppers, R. Ludwig, A. Mattheus, W. Pieper, B. Strebel, and H. G. Weber, RZ versus NRZ modulation format for dispersion compensated SMF-based 10Gb/s transmission with more than 100km amplifier spacing. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 11, pp. 481-483, 1999 R. Ludwig, U. Fieste, E. Dietrich, H. G. Weber, D. Breuer, M. Martin, and F. Kuppers, Experimental comparison of 40Gbit/s RZ and NRZ transmission over standard singlemode fiber. Electronics Letters, vol. 35, pp. 2216-2218, 1999 O. A. Sab, H. Bissessur, Signal formats and error correction in optical transmission. Optical Telecommunications, vol. 4, pp. 95104, 2003 B. Bakhshi, M. Vaa, E. A. Golovchenko, W. W. Patterson, R. L. Maybach, and N. S. Bergano, Comparison of CRZ, RZ and NRZ modulation formats in a 64 /spl times/ 12.3 Gb/s WDM transmission experiment over 9000 km. Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibit (OFC 2001), No. 3, Proc. Section WF4, 2001 D. Breuer, and K. Petermann, Comparison of NRZ- and RZmodulation format for 40-Gb/s TDM standard-fiber systems. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 9, pp. 398-400, 1997 I. P. Kaminow, T. Li, Optical fiber telecommunications IVB: systems and impairments, Academic Press, San Diego, London, 2002 Y. Miyamoto, A. Hirano, K.Yonenaga, A.Sano, H.Toba, K. Murata, and O. Mitomi, 320 Gbit/s (840 Gbit/s) WDM transmission over 367 km with 120 km repeater spacing using carriersuppressed return-to-zero format. Electronics Letters, vol. 35, pp. 2041-2042, 1999 A. Hodzic, B. Konrad, and K. Petermann, Alternative modulation formats in N40 Gb/s WDM standard fiber RZtransmission systems. Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 20, pp. 598-607, 2002 T. Tokle, C. Peucheret, and P. Jeppesen, Advanced modulation formats in 40Gbit/s optical communication systems with 80-km fiber spans. Optics Communications, vol. 225, pp. 79-87, 2003 J. Yan , M. Chen, S. Xie, and B. Zhou, Performance comparison of standard FEC in 40Gbit/s optical transmission systems with NRZ, RZ and CS-RZ modulation formats Optics Communications, vol. 231, pp. 175-180, 2004 B. Mukherjee, Optical communication networks, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1997 M. H. Wahid, Application of SOA-NOLM in all-optical processing. PhD thesis, Department of Electronic Engineering and Applied Physics, Aston University, Birmingham, 2009 M. F. Faridus, M. H. A. Wahid, N. Sabani, and R. Rostam,SOA characterization for AND logic operation on SOA based NOLM, IEEE Regional Symposium on Micro and Nanoelectronics (RSM), pp. 372 376, 2011 R. Rostam, M. H. A. Wahid, S. A. A. Rais, and M. F. Faridus, The effect of signal repetition rate, injected current and switching window on cross-phase modulation in SOA-NOLM, IEEE Regional Symposium on Micro and Nanoelectronics (RSM), pp. 373 376, 2011

[2]

[3]

Pulse-Width (ps)

50 45 40 35 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 RZ CSRZ

[4]

[5]

Distance (km)
Fig. 10. Pulse-width versus propagation distance for one selected RZ signal (2=1555.5 nm) and its converted CSRZ, depicting the signals broadening evolution.

[6]

4 CONCLUSION
This paper presented experimental results for the performance of a CSRZ format after all-optical conversion from NRZ and RZ formats using a semiconductor laser amplifier based nonlinear optical loop mirror (SOANOLM). The paper showed successful conversion results for 4 10 Gbit/s WDM signals with 100 GHz spacing. The optical conversion bandwidth and limitations for the all-optical converter device was explored as well. The paper then demonstrated transmission results over a 195 km fiber span for the all-optical converted CSRZ signal and its original NRZ/RZ signals. The receiver sensitivity for the converted four WDM signals was compared with the sensitivity for the original NRZ and RZ counterparts. The paper proved that the receiver requires less power in the converted CSRZ signals to satisfy 10-9 BER. More significant improvement would be expected if the system uses fibers with low local dispersion, or less channel spacing so more inter-channel interaction is induced. In general, the SOA-NOLM converter limits the performance of all formats in our experiments, but the results can still be used to show relative performance for the converted and unconverted signals in transmission.

[7] [8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12] [13] [14]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The experimental work of this paper was carried out at Aston University (UK) in collaboration with Mohammad H. Wahid and under the supervision of Prof. Keith J. Blow whom the author is thankful. The author is also

[15]

[16] M. Nahas, M. H. Wahid, R. Ibbotson, and K. J. Blow, 10 Gbit/s Transmission over Long Distance after All-Optical NRZ and RZ to CSRZ Format Conversion using SLALOM, Nonlinear Guided Waves Conference (NLGW), Proc. Section WB7, 2005 [17] R. Hui, S. Zhang, A. Ganesh, C. Allen, and K. Demarest, 40Gb/s Optical Transmission System Testbed. Technical Report, Information and Telecommunication Technology Centre, The University of Kansas, 2004 [18] W. Li, M. Chen, Y. Dong, and S. Xie, All-optical format conversion from NRZ to CSRZ and between RZ and CSRZ using SOA-based fiber loop mirror. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 16, pp. 203-205, 2004 [19] M. Eiselt, W. Pieper, and H. G. Weber, SLALOM: Semiconductor laser amplifier in a loop mirror. Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 13, pp. 2099-2112, 1995 [20] R. J. Manning, A. D. Ellis, A. J. Poustie, and K. J. Blow, Semiconductor laser amplifier for ultrafast all-optical signal processing. Journal of the Optical Society of America, B14, pp. 3204-3216, 1997 Mousaab M. Nahas received a BSc degree from the University of Jordan in 1999 and an MSc degree from Aston University in 2002. He then joined the Photonics Research Group of Aston University and received a PhD degree in optical fiber communications in 2007. He worked in telecommunications industry between 2007-2009. In 2009, he joined the Electrical Engineering Department in the Faculty of Engineering at Rabigh branch of King Abdulaziz University in KSA, and worked as Assistant Professor until 2011. In 2011, he moved to North Jeddah branch of King Abdulaziz University and is now Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering. His main research interest is upgrading legacy WDM communication systems using different techniques including data patterning and modulation formats. He is also interested in line monitoring techniques for legacy optically amplified long-haul undersea systems.