Wideband tunable wavelength conversion of 10-Gbit/s return-to-zero signals by optical time gating of a highly chirped rectangular supercontinuum light source

Abstract

We propose a novel technique for wideband tunable wavelength conversion of return-to-zero signals by optical time gating of a supercontinuum (SC) light source. A SC pulse generated by nonlinear propagation in a normal-dispersion fiber has a rectangular shape with highly linear upchirping. By control of the optical time-gating position, the center wavelength of time-gated SC pulse can be precisely tuned. Error-free 10-Gbit/s wavelength conversion with a tuning range of 27.1 nm is experimentally demonstrated.