Abstract

Sources of ultrashort pulses operating at multi-gigahertz frequencies are of much interest for a range of different applications, including optical time and wavelength division multiplexing (OTDM and WDM) communication systems, optical demultiplexing, optical sampling and all-optical switching. These applications have different requirements on pulse durations and duty ratios, but all require a source of high quality, pedestal-free, transform-limited pulses at selected and stable wavelengths. We report the development of a simple, practical and flexible 10 GHz source of high quality transform-limited pulses with tunable and readily selectable pulse durations between 20 ps and 200 fs. We also demonstrate the generation of a several synchronised 10 GHz channels at different wavelengths with a selectable pulse duration, suitable for WDM applications.

© 1995 Optical Society of America