All-optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmitter

The invention relates to an all-optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmitter for generating an OFDM output signal. The transmitter comprises a first time-domain optical Fourier transform (OFT) assembly, the first OFT assembly is of a K-D-K configuration and comprises in said order a first phase modulator, a dispersive element and a second phase modulator. The first and second phase modulators are configurable for exercising a parabolic phase modulation to substantially linearly phase chirp an optical signal so as to have a chirp rate K 1 and K 2 , respectively. The dispersive element has a dispersion parameter D. The phase modulators are configurable to have nominally identical chirp rates, K 1 = K 2 = K, and the OFT assembly is further configurable such that D = 1/ K . The invention further relates to methods of generating an OFDM signal.