Patent ID: 7567757

Claim:
An all-optical system for generating high rate modulated signals, the system comprising: a signal generator for generating a first periodic signal having pulses at a first rate; an optical chopping device arranged to receive said first periodic signal and to produce therefrom, by chopping out part of the energy of said pulses of said first periodic signal, a second periodic signal including a chopped portion of the first periodic signal, wherein the second periodic signal has pulses that are narrower than the pulses of said first periodic signal, wherein said optical chopping device is selected from the group consisting of self-chopping devices, self-switching devices, self-triggering devices, self-controlled devices, self-triggered gates, and modulating devices with a self-control feature; a splitting device for receiving and splitting said second periodic signal into multiple images of said second periodic signal to propagate along multiple optical paths, said multiple optical paths including optical modulators for modulating said images of said second periodic signal to produce modulated signals; and an interleaving device for receiving and interleaving said modulated signals to produce a stream of modulated signals having a second rate that is higher than said first rate.