100GHz scope means bandwidth no longer a limiting factor in design

First demonstrated in public in July 2013, the technology has found its way to market in the LabMaster 10-100Zi, which can handle 240Gsample/s. According to the company, the device is key to analysing and understanding the fastest phenomena found in R&D labs. "As we research new ways to expand the amount of data that future optical communications networks will be expected to carry, we demonstrated a record 160Gbaud QPSK system prototype," said Dr Peter Winzer of Bell Labs, the industrial research arm of Alcatel-Lucent. "The 100GHz bandwidth and 240Gsample/s rate were key in building this system. Oscilloscope bandwidth is no longer the limiting factor in our research; it currently exceeds the bandwidth of the transmitter and optical to electrical converter in the receiver." The LabMaster 10-100Zi is the latest acquisition module in the LabMaster 10 Zi series, which allows users to build oscilloscopes with high channel counts. Up to 20 acquisition modules can be connected, allowing oscilloscopes to be created with up to 80 channels at 36GHz, 20 channels at 100GHz or anything in between, says the company.