Generation of WDM adaptive-rate pulse bursts by cascading narrow/wideband tunable optical dispersion compensators.

We demonstrate passive generation of optical pulse trains with each pulse having distinct center carrier and spectra using tunable group delay (GD) staircase transfer functions. The GD steps result from opposite and equal magnitude GD slopes from narrowband and wideband tunable optical dispersion compensators. We use this technique to split the spectrum of a femtosecond pulse to a pulse burst with precise control of pulse time separation.