Spectral slicing of a supercontinuum source for WDM/DS-OCDMA application

WDM and optical CDMA are leading contenders to easily upgrade access network performances in terms of multiple access technique. Both methods can be used at once, using a single multiwavelength optical source. We show, numerically and experimentally, that spectral slicing of a 10-GHz pulse train broadened to a supercontinuum yields pulses suitable for use in a direct sequence optical CDMA system. Simulations with optical CDMA encoders and decoders based on superstructured fiber Bragg gratings indicate good performance can be expected.