Abstract

A method for ultrafast photonic time-intensity integration of an arbitrary temporal waveform is, for the first time to our knowledge, proposed and demonstrated. The introduced intensity-integration concept is based on the superposition of mutually incoherent, continuously-time-delayed replicas of the optical intensity waveform to be processed. This idea is practically implemented using optical intensity modulation of the input waveform with a rectangularlike incoherent energy spectrum distribution followed by linear dispersion. The key design specifications of the proposed integration scheme are derived and discussed. Proof-of-concept experiments are performed demonstrating accurate integration of several duration-limited microwave and optical intensity waveforms with time features from the picosecond to the subnanosecond range.

© 2009 Optical Society of America

Single-shot photonic time-intensity integration based on a time-spectrum convolution system

Antonio Malacarne, Reza Ashrafi, Ming Li, Sophie LaRochelle, Jianping Yao, and José Azaña
Opt. Lett. 37(8) 1355-1357 (2012)

Photonic temporal integration of broadband intensity waveforms over long operation time windows

Mohammad H. Asghari, Yongwoo Park, and José Azaña
Opt. Lett. 36(18) 3557-3559 (2011)

Proposal of a uniform fiber Bragg grating as an ultrafast all-optical integrator

José Azaña
Opt. Lett. 33(1) 4-6 (2008)

Proposal for arbitrary-order temporal integration of ultrafast optical signals using a single uniform-period fiber Bragg grating

Mohammad H. Asghari and José Azaña
Opt. Lett. 33(13) 1548-1550 (2008)

Optical signal processors based on a time-spectrum convolution

Yongwoo Park and José Azaña
Opt. Lett. 35(6) 796-798 (2010)