Abstract

Nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) is one of the promising candidates for ultra-fast all-optical demultiplexers in future optical communication systems [1-3]. The highest switching bit rate achieved with NOLM demultiplexer was 64 Gbit/s as reported in Ref. [4] where a 64 Gbit/s data stream was switched by a 4 GHz control pulse train. This paper is intended to further investigate ultra-high speed performance (> 100 Gbit/s) of the NOLM demultiplexer. One of the problems associated with 100 Gbit/s operation has been synchronization errors between control and signal pulses caused by timing jitter. The 1st approach we have attempted is to produce sufficient amount of jitter tolerance of the NOLM demultiplexer by utilizing chromatic dispersion-induced pulse walk-off between control and signal pulses, which is controlled by using a wavelength tunable mode-locked Er3+-doped fiber ring laser (MLRL) [3, 5] as an optical signal source (gating-width control). Secondly, we incorporated a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) 6.3-100 Gbit/s time division multiplexer which makes it possible to suppress pulse-energy fluctuations and timing jitter of a densely multiplexed signal pulse stream. Based upon the two schemes 100 Gbit/s NOLM demultiplexing is successfully demonstrated for the first time and it has been found that fine gating-width control is essential for ultra-high speed demultiplexing over the 100 Gbit/s regime.

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