Self-clocked 80 Gbits/s optical time-domain multiplexing transmission with clock distribution based on amplitude discrimination

Conventional all-optical feedback-based clock recovery techniques for optical time-domain multiplexing (OTDM) networks place restrictions on the allowed data patterns that can be transmitted. We propose a data-independent clock distribution solution based on amplitude discrimination and experimentally demonstrate it in an 80 Gbits/s self-clocked OTDM transmission. According to the method a single OTDM subchannel is used for exchanging clock information. All processing is performed all optically in low latency nonlinear-optical-loop- mirror-based switches with short (~10 m) nonlinear elements.