Author: M. E. Fermann

Publisher:

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 5

ISBN-13:

The application of acousto-optic tunable filters for shaping of ultra-fast pulses in the time domain is analyzed and demonstrated. With the rapid advance of acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) technology, the opportunity for sophisticated signal processing capabilities arises. AOTFs offer unique processing functions, since they may be designed for operation at 1.55 micrometers and allow the simultaneous handling of up to 100 frequency channels with a high spectral resolution and with processing times of a few microsec, i.e., some three orders of magnitude faster than possible with any other technology. Previous applications of the multi-channel capability of the AOTF have concentrated on narrow-bandwidth optical signals like-in gain equalization of erbium doped fiber amplifiers. Here we show that AOTFs can also be used for the manipulation of ultrashort optical pulses by correlated amplitude and phase filtering of the multiple optical frequency components composing the ultrashort pulse. To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of the AOTF for ultra-fast time-domain signal processing.