Photonic gateway: TDM-to-WDM-to-TDM conversion and reconversion at 40 Gbit/s (4 channels X 10 Gbits/s)

A photonic gateway that performs conversion and reconversion of 40-Gbit/s (4-channel x 10-Gbit/s) TDM-to-WDM-to-TDM by use of only data-signal-induced supercontinuum light sources is experimentally demonstrated. The proposed scheme is based on ultrafast photonic processing in both the time domain and the frequency domain, namely, optical time gating along with time shifting in the time domain, and supercontinuum generation followed by spectrum slicing in the frequency domain. A strict transparency to the bit rate and potential in ultrahigh-speed TDM-to-DWDM distinguish this conversion scheme. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.