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Abstract

Timing restoration for a series of input pulses is performed optically in a transmission or switching system, using a nonlinear material with negligible walk-off that also receives an essentially orthogonally polarized series of reference pulses. In the nonlinear material, the input pulses are frequency shifted by the presence of the reference pulses. For a material with negligible walk-off, the frequency shift only occurs when the pulses partially overlap, but not when the pulses are coincident. The frequency shifted output from the nonlinear material is supplied to a dispersive delay line that translates the frequency shift into a time shift, such that the input pulses are retimed by the reference pulses. If the nonlinear material has a nonlinear index of refraction n.sub.2 >0, then the dispersive delay line must have an anomalous Group Velocity Dispersion (GVD); on the other hand, if the nonlinear material has an index of refraction n.sub.2 <0, then the dispersive delay line must have a normal GVD. The nonlinear and dispersive media may be separate sections or distributed in the same medium.

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First Claim