TOP CLASS · Terabit Optical Processing using Comb Locked Amplified Signal Synthesis
FP7 — People (Marie Curie Actions)
- Duration
- 2010-10-01 → 2012-09-30
- EU contribution
- €239,790
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MC-IEF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Terabit Optical Processing using Comb Locked Amplified Signal Synthesis
Signal processing of optical signals is applied today in many fields including telecommunications, metrology, and in various disciplines in optical sensing/analysis (ranging from environmental sensing through the biological and medical sciences to security). In order for optical signal generation to be used in the future it is essential to be able to generate optical signals with parameters that go well beyond those attainable electronically – indeed we contend that optical signals will need to promise at least an order of magnitude better performance than those obtained electronically. Thus, arbitrary signals with bandwidth and/or repetition rate of ~1 THz (electronics signals are typically bandwidth/repetition rate limited to ~100 GHz) will be required. To achieve this goal, full control over the amplitude and phase of large-bandwidth high repetition rate optical signals is needed.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
All-optical signal processing promises a route to unprecedented processing bandwidths - orders of magnitude greater than possible using electronics. Ultrafast optical processing offers the potential to revolutionise many existing fields of photonic applications including telecommunications, metrology, and optical sensing. It also promises to be a critical technology for other emerging disciplines including environmental science, biology, medicine and security. However, its application has been hindered by the lack of a number of critical components – in particular the availability of a high-power, low-noise, truly-broadband, optical signal synthesizer/arbitrary waveform generator operable up to the multi-THz regime. To develop such a device requires full control over the amplitude and phase of large-bandwidth high repetition rate optical signals which has been a challenge to date. Here, we propose to investigate one possible approach to realise a high performance, optical signal synthesizer based on the coherent superposition of multiple, phase locked lasers operating at spectrally-distant optical frequencies (e.g. on a 1 THz grid to allow THz pulse train generation). To achieve the high level of coherence among these lasers we propose to phase lock them to a high-quality optical ‘ruler’ (optical comb). This approach brings several important advantages over the direct use of line-filtered optical combs - the only other real alternative approach to date. These include: (i) a much larger line spacing (e.g. >1 THz, as opposed to 250 MHz – 10 GHz for conventional combs); (ii) far higher powers-per line (e.g. 50 mW, as opposed to ~1 µW for a typical comb) and; (iii) reduced demands on the associated filters and combiners. We propose to demonstrate the advantages and potential of our approach in a number of demanding telecom based optical signal processing applications and to explore other uses of the synthesiser in THz photonics, sensing and metrology.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON · SOUTHAMPTONCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union