Single and Multiwavelength All-Optical Clock Recovery in Single-Mode Fiber Using the Temporal Talbot Effect

We introduce and demonstrate an all-optical clock recovery scheme for return-to-zero transmission systems based on the buffering property of the temporal Talbot effect. This linear, dispersive, and, in principle, lossless phenomenon allows us to generate a regular pulse train from a pseudorandom (aperiodic) input train. Proof-of-principle operation at one and two simultaneous wavelengths is demonstrated using the single-mode fiber as the dispersive medium to implement the temporal Talbot effect. We examine both the limitations and the tolerance of our approach.