Optical subcarrier labeling transparent to the payload format using carrier suppression technique

In this letter, we propose an optical subcarrier labeling technique that guarantees the transparency to the payload modulation format based on carrier suppression of the payload. We experimentally demonstrate transparent wavelength conversion based on four-wave mixing in a highly nonlinear fiber and subcarrier label insertion for a 10-Gb/s differential phase-shift keying payload and a 155-Mb/s amplitude shift keying subcarrier label with an overall penalty of 1.8 dB for the payload and 1.7 dB for the label. © 2006 IEEE.