Patent ID: 6735396
Filing Date: 2004-05-11
Classification: H04B,H04L

Abstract:
A method for quantifying the amount of timing jitter experienced by an optical data pulse in an optical transmission system, the method comprising:generating a chirped optical pulse whose wavelength varies monotonically over the duration of the chirped pulse, applying in synchronism with the notional unjittered arrival time of the optical data pulse, the chirped optical pulse to a first input of an optical AND gate, applying the optical data pulse to a second input of the optical AND gate to trigger the AND gate and to produce at the output of the AND gate an output optical pulse having a wavelength determined by the amount of jitter experienced by the data pulse with respect to said notional unjittered arrival time, and thereafter detecting the wavelength of the optical output pulse to achieve a measure of the amount of jitter, wherein the chirped optical pulse is one of a stream of pulses, and wherein the data Pulse is one of a clocked stream of data pulses, the stream of chirped pulses being synchronized with the clock of the data pulse stream.