Data encoded optical pulse generator

摘要

An apparatus is disclosed for producing encoded optical pulses for transmission in an optical communication system. The apparatus comprises a semiconductor laser (10) and a modulator (30), the laser for providing an optical source, the modulator for modulating the optical source. The laser is biased to produce a CW optical output and RZ electrical data pulses (570) are applied to the modulator to modulate the CW optical output to produce RZ optical data pulses corresponding to the RZ electrical data pulse. The RZ electrical data pulses are formed by performing a gating operation, using a dual gate FET (500), of an NRZ data input (545) with a periodic analog signal, generated by superimposing harmonic related sinusoidal signals to provide electrical RZ data pulses. <IMAGE>