Experimental demonstration of all-optical quantization by slicing the supercontinuum

Abstract In this paper, we demonstrate an all-optical quantization scheme based on slicing the supercontinuum generated in the normal dispersion region of a highly nonlinear fiber. With the proposed quantization scheme, a 3-bit all-optical quantizer is experimentally achieved. The maximum values of differential nonlinear error, integral nonlinear error, effective number of bit, and signal-to-noise ratio are 0.29 least significant bit, 0.36 least significant bit, 2.64 bit, and 15.9 dB, respectively, which further proves the effectiveness of 3-bit quantizer. Moreover, the -20 dB spectral width on the anti-Stokes side is broadened to 101 nm when the input average power is 3.8 mW, which has the potential for realizing 7-bit all-optical quantization.