Ho PP, Wang QZ, Chen J, Liu QD, Alfano RR. Ultrafast optical pulse digitization with unary spectrally encoded cross-phase modulation.
APPLIED OPTICS 1997;
36:3425-3429. [PMID:
18253358 DOI:
10.1364/ao.36.003425]
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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.
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