Generation of a multi-wavelength source spanning the entire C-band by nonlinear spectral broadening of dual-carrier electro-optic frequency combs

We demonstrate a multi-wavelength source with a high repetition rate of 25 GHz, spanning the entire C-band, of which 124 lines lie within 10 dB bandwidth. We exploit the spectral and temporal properties of dual carrier electro-optic combs to simultaneously enhance self-phase modulation (SPM) based broadening and increase the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold. Dual carrier combs are generated through electro-optic modulation of spectrally separated narrow linewidth carriers. They are spectrally broadened in a highly nonlinear fiber after amplification with an in-house built erbium ytterbium co-doped fiber amplifier. The temporal profile of the dual carrier combs consists of significantly narrow pulses (1.4-1.9 ps FWHM) in
comparison to the single laser comb (16.5 ps FWHM), increasing the peak power and enhancing the SPM effects. Further, the spectral power is distributed across the comb lines, increasing the SBS threshold and thus the power scalability of the system. These two factors together boost the bandwidth of the spectrally broadened multi-wavelength source.