Abstract
A method to digitize the intensity of ultrashort laser pulses for high-speed optical signal processing is described. This digitization was based on the spectral broadening of a weak probe (carrier) pulse by a more intense pump (signal) pulse through the nonlinear optical process of cross-phase modulation (XPM). The signal pulse intensity was varied to generate different spectral widths that can be encoded into digital form. Using a 50-ps time-divided multiplexing pulse train with a waveguide splitter, combiner, and an array of fibers with variable lengths, a unary XPM encoding approach is demonstrated. The spectral encoding scheme can be used to achieve a 5-GHz sampling rate at a 16-level accuracy.
© 1997 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Tsuyoshi Konishi, Kazunori Tanimura, Kousuke Asano, Yoshinori Oshita, and Yoshiki Ichioka
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 19(11) 2817-2823 (2002)
S. Matsuoka, N. Miyanaga, S. Amano, and M. Nakatsuka
Opt. Lett. 22(1) 25-27 (1997)
Brent W. Plansinis, William R. Donaldson, and Govind P. Agrawal
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35(2) 436-445 (2018)