Dense WDM with femtosecond laser pulses

We present an application of femtosecond laser pulses that is not directly related to high speed, but rather makes use of the large spectral bandwidth of these pulses to address a systems issue in wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) communication links. One inherent difficulty of currently proposed WDM systems is the need for multiple lasers operating at different wavelengths, which hence have to be wavelength-selected and stabilized at that particular wavelength for years to come. We demonstrate a WDM system based on a single short-pulse laser source that covers all WDM channels simultaneously, hence eliminating many of the source problems of conventional WDM systems.