Demonstration of timing skew compensation for bit-parallel WDM data transmission with picosecond precision

We demonstrate transmission of seven wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) bit-parallel channels with a total of 15-nm spectral span over a 2.5-km standard single-mode fiber/dispersion-compensating fiber link with less than 3-ps timing skew. The synchronized WDM channels are generated by spectrally slicing pulses from a single femtosecond fiber laser using a femtosecond pulse shaper. The small residual timing skew arises from the residual dispersion slope of the link. We measure a dispersion slope of D'=0.017 ps/km/mn/sup 2/, which is roughly four times less than for an equivalent length of dispersion-shifted fiber. Our work shows that the dispersion-compensating fiber technique could significantly reduce the timing skew for WDM bit-parallel transmission over a several-kilometer fiber link.