Reduced bandwidth optical digital intensity modulationwith improvedchromatic dispersion tolerance

A simple optical modulation scheme using a lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder modulator driven by a three level drive waveform is proposed. The two-level intensity modulated (IM) optical signal obtained possesses a smaller optical bandwidth and thus greater chromatic dispersion tolerance compared with existing two-level IM methods used for high data rate transmission (e.g. 10 Gbit/s).