Generation of terabit per second optical data pulsetrain

This Letter reports the first successful generation of an optical data pulse stream at bit rates as high as 640 Gbit/s – 1.28 Tbit/s, achieved by using an optical time domain multiplexing technique from a 10 Gbit/s unit. The OTDM consists of a silica planar lightwave circuit with a seven-step Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The pulse width of the original data stream is as short as 220 fs. The average output powers at 640 Gbit/s and 1.28 Tbit/s through a high power EDFA are 170 and 300 mW, respectively.