A study of a novel picosecond pulse source based on EAM and fiber-based pulse compressor

In this paper the operation characteristics of a novel picosecond pulse source is investigated experimentally and simulated numerically. The stable and pedestal-free pulse source is consisted of an electroabsorption modulator (EAM) and the following well-designed fiber-based pulse compressor. The obtained pulse has width of less than 2.5 ps, high extinction ratio, low timing jitter even in a large pump power range of around 2.4 dB. The basic function and characteristics of every component in the compressor is investigated in detail. The experimental results are in complete agreement with the simulation results. Finally, as an application illustration of the obtained pulse source, the obtained pulse train is applied to 16 × 10 Gbit/s optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) system successfully.