Nonlinear Optical Signal Processing for Tbit/s Ethernet Applications

Figure 16

Suggested Ethernet compatible optical TDM system. Each 10 GE packet is synchronised to the local master clock via a time-lens-based sync unit, essentially stretching or compressing the data packet to fit the individual bits to the local rep rate. The synchronised bits in the packet are then individually converted to RZ pulses, for example, by optical sampling, allowing for subsequent time domain multiplexing, by interleaving the bits with those from other synchronised packets. Thus, each packet is ascribed its own time slot. Time slot N may also be marked with a channel ID, for example, by a slight phase modulation, allowing for easy channel identification and sub rate clock recovery at the receiver. The demultiplexing may take place in several ways and is here only conceptually shown as parallel demux-units for simplicity.