Experimental verification of the pulse shepherding concept in dispersion-shifted single-mode fiber for bit-parallel wavelength links

A new way to dynamically control in-flight pulses by a co-propagating shepherd pulse in a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) single-mode fiber system was proposed at the MPPOI ´96 Conference. That system functionally resembles an optical fiber ribbon cable, except that all the bits pass on one fiber optic waveguide. This single fiber bit parallel wavelength link can be used to extend the (speed x distance) product of emerging cluster computer networks, such as, the MyriNet, SCI, Hippi-6400, ShuffleNet, etc. Here, we shall present the first experimental evidence that this pulse shepherding effect can be observed in a commercially available Corning DS (dispersion-shifted) fiber. Computer simulation results will first be presented for the case observed in the laboratory setup. A discussion of the experiment setup and measurement procedures will be given. Experimental results will then be compared with computer generated results. Excellent agreement is observed. Future experiments dealing with the shepherding effect among more than two co-propagating pulses will be performed.