All-optical repetition rate multiplication of pseudorandom bit sequences based on cascaded TOADs

A scheme for all-optical repetition rate multiplication of pseudorandom bit sequences (PRBS) is demonstrated with all-optical wavelength conversion and optical logic gate 'OR' based on cascaded Tera-Hertz Optical Asymmetric Demultiplexers (TOADs). Its feasibility is verified by multiplication experiments from 500 Mb/s to 4 Gb/s for 23−1 PRBS and from 1 Gb/s to 4 Gb/s for 27−1 PRBS. This scheme can be employed for rate multiplication for much longer cycle PRBS at much higher bit rate over 40 Gb/s when the time-delay, the loss and the dispersion of the optical delay line are all precisely managed. The upper limit of bit rate will be restricted by the recovery time of semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) finally.