Concepts for the Temporal Characterization of Short Optical Pulses

Methods for the characterization of the time-dependent electric field of short optical pulses are reviewed. The representation of these pulses in terms of correlation functions and time-frequency distributions is discussed, and the strategies for their characterization are explained using these representations. Examples of the experimental implementations of the concepts of spectrography, interferometry, and tomography for the characterization of pulses in the optical telecommunications environment are presented.

[1]  D. Reid.  Algorithm for complete and rapid retrieval of ultrashort pulse amplitude and phase from a sonogram , 1999 .

[2]  J. Goodman.  Introduction to Fourier optics , 1969 .

[3]  G. Raybon,et al.  Linear optical sampling , 2003, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[4]  C. Dorrer,et al.  Complete temporal characterization of short optical pulses by simplified chronocyclic tomography. , 2003, Optics letters.

[5]  Inuk Kang,et al.  Highly sensitive direct characterization of femtosecond pulses by electro-optic spectral shearing interferometry. , 2003, Optics letters.

[6]  D.A. Reid,et al.  Optimization of optical data transmitters for 40-Gb/s lightwave systems using frequency resolved optical gating , 2002, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[7]  G P Agrawal,et al.  Energy spectrum of a nonstationary ensemble of pulses. , 2004, Optics letters.

[8]  Stewart E. Miller,et al.  Optical Fiber Telecommunications , 1979 .

[9]  C. Dorrer,et al.  Chirped return-to-zero modulation by imbalanced pulse carver driving signals , 2004, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[10]  D N Fittinghoff,et al.  Measurement of the intensity and phase of ultraweak, ultrashort laser pulses. , 1996, Optics letters.

[11]  J P Heritage,et al.  Direct measurement of the spectral phase of femtosecond pulses. , 1995, Optics letters.

[12]  Charles E. Cook,et al.  Radar Signals: An Introduction to Theory and Application , 1967 .

[13]  C. Dorrer,et al.  Real-time implementation of linear spectrograms for the characterization of high bit-rate optical pulse trains , 2004, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[14]  F. K. Fatemi,et al.  Characterisation of telecommunications pulse trains by Fourier-transform and dual-quadrature spectral interferometry , 2003 .

[15]  C. Froehly,et al.  Spectro-temporal imaging of femtosecond events , 2000, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.

[16]  K Ogawa,et al.  High-sensitivity pulse spectrogram measurement using two-photon absorption in a semiconductor at 1.5-microm wavelength. , 2000, Optics express.

[17]  David M. Bloom,et al.  Time‐to‐frequency converter for measuring picosecond optical pulses , 1993 .

[18]  Ljubisa Stankovic,et al.  Signal reconstruction from two close fractional Fourier power spectra , 2003, IEEE Trans. Signal Process..

[19]  I. Walmsley,et al.  Analysis of ultrashort pulse-shape measurement using linear interferometers. , 1994, Optics letters.

[20]  M. Thomson,et al.  Complete pulse characterization at 1.5 mum by cross-phase modulation in optical fibers. , 1998, Optics letters.

[21]  P. Kockaert,et al.  Simple amplitude and phase measuring technique for ultrahigh-repetition-rate lasers , 2000, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[22]  Kazuro Kikuchi.  Theory of sonogram characterization of optical pulses , 2001 .

[23]  Daniel J. Kane,et al.  Simultaneous measurement of two ultrashort laser pulses from a single spectrogram in a single shot , 1997 .

[24]  R. Trebino.  Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating: The Measurement of Ultrashort Laser Pulses , 2000 .

[25]  Yasuyuki Ozeki,et al.  High dynamic range characterization of waveform and frequency-chirp of pico-second pulses based on the precise measurement of group delay in optical frequency domain , 2003, OFC 2003 Optical Fiber Communications Conference, 2003..

[26]  P. Kockaert,et al.  Complete characterization of (ultra)short optical pulses using fast linear detectors , 2004, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[27]  J Debeau,et al.  Simple method for the complete characterization of an optical pulse. , 1998, Optics letters.

[28]  C. Iaconis,et al.  Spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction of ultrashort optical pulses , 1998, Technical Digest. Summaries of Papers Presented at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics. Conference Edition. 1998 Technical Digest Series, Vol.6 (IEEE Cat. No.98CH36178).

[29]  D. J. Kane,et al.  Real-time measurement of ultrashort laser pulses using principal component generalized projections , 1998 .

[30]  Rolf Gase,et al.  Time-dependent spectrum of linear optical systems , 1991 .

[31]  Peter A. Andrekson.  Tutorial: Ultra high bandwidth optical sampling oscilloscopes , 2004 .

[32]  Manuel Joffre,et al.  Linear techniques of phase measurement by femtosecond spectral interferometry for applications in spectroscopy , 1995 .

[33]  Ian A. Walmsley,et al.  Characterization of the electric field of ultrashort optical pulses , 1996 .

[34]  J. Paye,et al.  The chronocyclic representation of ultrashort light pulses , 1992 .

[35]  C.R. Doerr,et al.  Direct measurement of constellation diagrams of optical sources , 2004, Optical Fiber Communication Conference, 2004. OFC 2004.

[36]  M G Raymer,et al.  Chronocyclic tomography for measuring the amplitude and phase structure of optical pulses. , 1993, Optics letters.

[37]  Avinash C. Kak,et al.  Principles of computerized tomographic imaging , 2001, Classics in applied mathematics.

[38]  I. A. Walmsley,et al.  Direct interferometric techniques for characterizing ultrashort optical pulses , 1998 .

[39]  I. Walmsley,et al.  The role of dispersion in ultrafast optics , 2001 .

[40]  Krzysztof Wódkiewicz,et al.  The time-dependent physical spectrum of light and the wigner distribution function , 1982 .

[41]  Inuk Kang,et al.  Implementation of electro-optic spectral shearing interferometry for ultrashort pulse characterization. , 2003, Optics letters.

[42]  T. Claasen,et al.  THE WIGNER DISTRIBUTION - A TOOL FOR TIME-FREQUENCY SIGNAL ANALYSIS , 1980 .

[43]  Khaled H. Hamed,et al.  Time-frequency analysis , 2003 .

[44]  Ian A. Walmsley,et al.  Phase retrieval in time-resolved spectral phase measurement , 1995, Photonics West.

[45]  Juan L. A. Chilla,et al.  Analysis of a method of phase measurement of ultrashort pulses in the frequency domain , 1991 .

[46]  Inuk Kang,et al.  Simultaneous temporal characterization of telecommunication optical pulses and modulators by use of spectrograms. , 2002, Optics letters.

[47]  Victor Wong,et al.  Ultrashort-pulse characterization from dynamic spectrograms by iterative phase retrieval , 1997 .

[48]  K. Brenner,et al.  Ambiguity Function and Wigner Distribution Function Applied to Partially Coherent Imagery , 1984 .

[49]  E. Treacy,et al.  Measurement and Interpretation of Dynamic Spectrograms of Picosecond Light Pulses , 1971 .

[50]  Jean-Marc Merolla,et al.  Milliwatt-peak-power pulse characterization at 1.55 microm by wavelength-conversion frequency-resolved optical gating. , 2002, Optics letters.

[51]  Toshio Morioka,et al.  Group velocity dispersion measurement using supercontinuum picosecond pulses generated in an optical fibre , 1993 .

[52]  D. Cotter,et al.  Optical Fiber Telecommunications II , 1989 .

[53]  Tatiana I Kuznetsova,et al.  BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS: Solution of the phase problem for time-dependent optical signals by an interference system , 1991 .

[54]  C. Hirlimann,et al.  Wavelet analysis of short light pulses. , 1992, Applied optics.

[55]  S. LaRochelle,et al.  Full characterization of uniform ultrahigh-speed trains of optical pulses using fiber Bragg gratings and linear detectors , 2004, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[56]  C. Dorrer,et al.  Highly sensitive differential tomographic technique for real-time ultrashort pulse characterization , 2004, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2004. (CLEO)..

[57]  E. H. Linfoot.  Principles of Optics , 1961 .

[58]  Henry Stark,et al.  Image recovery: Theory and application , 1987 .

[59]  E. Gini,et al.  Spectral phase measurement of mode-locked diode laser pulses by beating sidebands generated by electrooptical mixing , 2000, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.