A new technique to generate 40-GHz carrier-suppressed return-to-zero (CSRZ) optical pulse trains using only a 10-GHz dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) is presented and experimentally demonstrated. The spectrum of the generated CSRZ pulses is calculated by simulation and compared with conventional MZM-based RZ and CSRZ pulse trains. The experimental results demonstrate that CSRZ pulse trains are obtained, and that the carrier and the unwanted 20-GHz low-frequency component are suppressed by 25 dB. The technique can also be extended to 160-GHz CSRZ pulse generation when 40-GHz devices are employed.