Below are some updates from Coherent, a leading provider of test and measurement instruments for optical communications technology, including solutions designed for the Super-C Band.

For further information, feel free to reach out to the Starvoy team to arrange a meeting at our Kanata Test & Measurement Lab, one of our other offices, or whilst we are visiting OFC (6th – 9th March 2023, San Diego).

Introducing WaveShaper® 1000B and 4000B covering the Super C-Band

Coherent introduces the WaveShaper 1000B and 4000B covering the Super C-Band. The 1000B has a 1×1 and the 4000B a 1×4 port configuration. Both units support arbitrary spectral filter shapes of attenuation and phase across the entire operating range from 1523.142 nm to 1573.301 nm. A minimum filter bandwidth of 10 GHz (FWHM) is available. When selecting the “High Resolution” mode – which applies a double pass configuration inside the instrument – the minimum bandwidth reduces to 8 GHz.

 

The WS 1000B and 4000B offer a filter update rate of more than 10 uploads per second!

The units include a web server and can also controlled through Coherent’s WaveShaper App package. The instrument comes with a RESTful Application Programming Interface (API) so it can be integrated in automated systems using various programming and operating environments.

 

WaveAnalyzer™ 400A covering the Super C-Band

The family of the WaveAnalyzer 400A is growing! Newest member is the WA 400A covering the Super C-Band from 190.623 THz to 196.727 THz (1523.9 nm to 1572.7 nm). This unit comes in addition to the existing C-Band unit and C+L Band unit. All WA 400A units offer a 500 MHz (4 pm) resolution bandwidth and an update rate of 2 Hz for a sweep across the entire range.

The WA 400A offers a small footprint of only half a rack-width and 1U height. The WaveAnalyzer 400A includes a web server and is also supported by the Coherent WaveAnalyzer Application Software package which offers various measurement capabilities like DWDM Analysis, several OSNR measurement methods and Side-Mode Suppression Ratio (SMSR) measurement. All measurement and analysis functions are also accessible through the RESTful Application Programming Interface.

WaveMaker™ 4000A Programmable Optical Spectrum Synthesizer

The WaveMaker 4000A has been awarded 4.5 out of 5 points in the 2023 Lightwave Innovation Review! This result recognizes its innovative approach to generate spectrally shaped optical multi-channel signals for communication component and system test applications.

The internal setup of the WaveMaker 4000A is shown in the figure below. The unit includes an ASE Source plus a programmable filter for shaping the ASE – typically carving out the desired channels. An EDFA ensures that sufficient output power is available. The programmable Multiplexer removes remaining undesired ASE (for example between channels) and also supports multiplexing additional channels from external sources into the signal. As a last step the output signal is measured with an internal Optical Spectrum Analyzer module.

With this configuration, shapes with widths (FWHM) as narrow as 10 GHz and slopes as steep as 600 dB/nm can be generated. Extinction ratios exceeding 60 dB can be achieved.
Programming of the WaveMaker is done either through a GUI or using the RESTful Application Programming Interface (API).

Content from Coherent’s Instrumentation News – Spring 2023