All-optical bit pattern generation and matching

Abstract
All-optical bit pattern generation and matching is demonstrated at 10 Gbit/s. Bit patterns are generated from noise in a fibre loop memory and are matched in an all-optical exclusive OR (XOR) gate. The XOR gate is implemented in a nonlinear optical loop mirror. This is the first demonstration of an all-optical code matching circuit using an optical loop memory as a high rate pattern generator. Such high rate code generation and matching could be used for address recognition in ultra-high speed time division multiplexed systems.