Patent attributes
The invention relates to clock recovery in optical communication systems. Optical clock frequencies are recovered from a plurality of optical channels by using a single optical resonator. The optical resonator is matched with the carrier frequencies and the sideband frequencies of the data signals sent at different channels. The separation range of the optical resonator is selected such that the clock frequency of at least one data signal is substantially equal to the separation range of the optical resonator multiplied by an integer greater than or equal to two. The method according to the invention allows the use of different clock frequencies at different optical channels. Furthermore, the method provides considerable freedom to select the spectral positions of the optical channels.