106 /spl times/ 10 Gbit/s, 25 GHz-spaced, 640 km DWDM transmission employing a single supercontinuum multi-carrier source

Summary form only given. Future photonic networks will need to generate over one hundred optical carriers (modes) at ITU grids with well-controlled spacing. Supercontinuum (SC) generation is an effective way of obtaining such well-managed optical carriers by broadening the input optical pulse spectrum while maintaining coherency. Some of the advantages of using SC are a fixed channel spacing with an accuracy of a microwave oscillator and super-broadened spectra, and the capability of generating more than 100 channels. So far, WDM transmission experiments using SC-based pulse sources have been demonstrated. However, transmission experiments utilizing SC sources as multi-carrier sources have not been reported yet. In order to apply the SC sources to future photonic networks, the SC sources must be able to generate high power, high SNR optical carriers. Recently, we have generated 1000-channel optical carriers from a single SC source, and improved the output power and the SNR of the optical carriers. This paper describes the first transmission experiment utilizing the advanced SC multi-carrier source (SC-MCS) which generates over 1000 optical carriers with high power and high SNR.