10 Gb/s multiple wavelength, coherent short pulse source based on spectral carving of supercontinuum generated in fibers

We demonstrate a high-power, multi-wavelength, short pulse source at 10 Gb/s based on spectral slicing of supercontinuum (SC) generated in short fibers. We show that short fiber SC can be used for dense wavelength division multiplexing applications because of its >7.9 dBm/nm power spectral density, 140 nm spectral bandwidth, and /spl plusmn/0.5 dB spectral uniformity over 40 mn. Pulse carving up to 60 nm away from the pump wavelength and CW generation by longitudinal mode carving indicates that the coherence of the SC is maintained. By using high nonlinearity fibers, the spectral bandwidth is increased to 250 nm, which can accommodate >600 wavelength channels with 50 GHz channel spacing and >6 Tb/s aggregate data rate. We also calculate the coherence degradation due to amplification of incoherent energy during the SC generation. Theoretical results show that the SC generation in short fibers has 13 dB higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) compared to the SC generated in long fiber.