Application of time lenses for high speed fiber-optic communication systems

The Fourier transforming properties of time lenses are reviewed and two applications of times lenses in high speed fiber-optic communication systems are presented. A mid-point time reversal system based on time lenses can undo the deleterious effects of third order dispersion. Numerical simulation of a fiber optic system employing mid-point time reversal is carried out and results show the benefit of mid-point time reversal. Also, a technique to generate OFDM symbol optically using time lenses is provided. A comparison between the optical OFDM and electrical OFDM transmission system is made and results showed that the nonlinearity introduced by Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) could lead to performance degradation in electrical OFDM systems whereas MZM does not pose a problem for optical OFDM using time lenses.