Spectral line-by-line shaping for optical and microwave arbitrary waveform generations

Spectral line-by-line shaping is a key enabler towards optical arbitrary waveform generation, which promises broad impact both in optical science and technology. In this paper, generation of optical and microwave arbitrary waveforms using the spectral line-by-line shaping technique is reviewed. Compared to conventional pulse shaping, significant new physics arises in the line-by-line regime, where the shaped pulse fields generated from one laser pulse now overlap with those generated from adjacent pulses. This leads to coherent interference effects related to the properties of optical frequency combs which serve as the source in these experiments. We explore such effects in a series of experiments using several different high-repetitionrate optical combs, including harmonically mode-locked lasers and continuous-wave lasers that are externally phase modulated either with or without the help of an optical cavity. As an application of line-by-line pulse shaping, we describe generation of microwave electrical arbitrary waveforms that can be reprogrammed at rates approaching 10GHz. Significance of line-by-line shaping: combining optical frequency combs with spectral pulse shaping © 2008 by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co.KGaA, Weinheim Spectral line-by-line shaping for optical and microwave arbitrary waveform generations Chen-Bin Huang , Zhi Jiang , Daniel E. Leaird , José Caraquitena , and Andrew M. Weiner 1,* 1 School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2035, USA 2 Current address: Bell Laboratories, Alcatel Lucent, Murray Hill, NJ 07974, USA 3 Current address: Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA 4 Current address: Nanophotonics Technology Center, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 46022Valencia, Spain Received: 4 February 2008, Revised: 17 March 2008, Accepted: 17 March 2008 Published online: 23 April 2008