Abstract

Compact and efficient sources of high power ultrafast optical pulses are needed to incorporate high speed optical information processing techniques into future photonic networks. In this paper, the robust timing stability associated with optical mode-locked pulse trains from semiconductor diode lasers is examined as an alternative to standard methods of providing synchronous timing signals in future photonic networks. Here, it is demonstrated how these sources may play a role in several photonic network scenarios, such as optical clock distribution, photonic network synchronization, and all optical clock recovery.

© 1994 Optical Society of America