GENERATOR OF ULTRASHORT OPTICAL PULSES FOR TIME-DIVISION MULTIPLEXING

The performance of a device based on modified injection-locking techni ques is studied by means of numerical simulations. The device incorpor ates master and slave configurations, each one with a DFB laser and an electroabsortion modulator (EAM). This arrangement allows the generat ion of high peak power, narrow optical pulses according to a periodic or pseudorandom hit stream provided by a current signal generator. The device is able to considerably increase the modulation bandwidth of f ree-running gain-switched semiconductor lasers using multiplexing in t he time domain. Opportunities for integration in small packages or sin gle chips are discussed.