New optical receiver using two cascaded LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulators as optical time-division demultiplexer

A new optical receiver is proposed for optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) systems, which uses two cascaded LiNbO3 Mach–Zehnder intensity modulators as an ultrafast electrooptic (EO) time gate to demultiplex the OTDM data. Compared to optical fiber-based time-division demultiplexers, the newly designed EO time gates have the advantages of compactness, low power consumption, and high operation stability. With the Gaussian approximation of time-switching window for such EO gates, an analytical method is presented to efficiently evaluate the performance of this type of OTDM receiver employing PIN and avalanche photodiodes, respectively. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 48: 1326–1330, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.21627