A multi-wavelength optical source for synchronous and asynchronous data transfer at a minimum of 16 x 10 Gbps

摘要

Numerical calculations have been carried out to study the characteristics of a multi-channel optical source capable of delivering (ⅰ) picosecond pulses with 10 GHz repetition rate at 16 different wavelengths and (ⅱ) at least 16 channel multi-wavelength single mode CW output with precise 40 GHz channel spacing for application to fiber communication. In the first scheme, the pulse characteristics like power variation, pulse width and de-synchronization across the 16 demultiplexed channels are numerically investigated. The pulse width is observed to be almost constant (～13 ps) in all the channels. The suitability of dispersion flattened fiber and dispersion shifted fiber as supercontinuum fiber is analyzed from the viewpoint of power variation and de-synchronization. In the second scheme a negligible power variation is observed across the 16 CW channels. The advantage of the proposed scheme lies in obtaining easy up-gradation with ultra-stable pulse train. The first scheme is suitable only for synchronous data transfer while the second scheme can be used also for asynchronous data transfer.