A device and method for quantifying the amount of jitter experienced by an
optical data pulse. During transmission data pulses may suffer jitter.
Their arrival time at a node may be temporally offset from its predicted
arrival time. Data pulses are timed so that they may be received at a
detector disposed downstream of said node at a predetermined time. The
device includes an optical AND gate, which has a first input arranged to
receive a chirped pulse having a duration T, and whose wavelength varies
in a monotonically over the duration of the pulse, the node having a
second input arranged to receive a second data pulse. The node includes an
optical gate arranged to generate an output pulse in response to the
chirped pulse and the data pulse received at the first and second inputs,
respectively, having a wavelength dependent upon the time at which the
data pulse is received at the second input.
