We review recent work on all-fiber (long-period fiber grating) devices for optical pulse shaping, particularly flat-top pulse\ngeneration, down to the subpicosecond range and their application for nonlinear switching (demultiplexing) of optical timedivision\nmultiplexed (OTDM) data signals in fiber-optic telecommunication links operating up to 640 Gbit/s. Experiments are\npresented demonstrating error-free 640-to-10 Gbit/s demultiplexing of the 64 tributary channels using the generated flat-top\npulses for temporal gating in a Kerr-effect-based nonlinear optical loop mirror. The use of flat-top pulses has critical benefits\nin the demultiplexing process, including a significantly increased timing-jitter tolerance (up to ~500 fs, i.e., 30% of the bit period)\nand the associated improvement in the bit-error-rate performance (e.g., with a sensitivity increase of up to ~13 dB as compared\nwith the use of Gaussian-like gating pulses). Long-period fiber grating pulse shapers with reduced polarization dependence are\nfabricated and successfully used for polarization-independent 640-to-10 Gbit/s demultiplexing experiments.
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