New Light Sources and Concepts for Electro-Optic Sampling

Research to improve electro-optic sampling led to the development of several high performance optical phase modulators. These phase modulators serve as a time-lens in a series of experiments on temporal optical systems. These systems are used to generate, manipulate and measure optical pulses. Significant results have been shown in three areas. First is active optical pulse compression, where 55 ps 1.064 um pulses were compressed to 1.7 ps. Notably, laser timing jitter is reduced in this process. Second, temporal imaging demonstrated the ability to magnify the time axis of an optical pulse, stretching a short pulse into a longer replica. This tool has application in pulse shape measurement and optical signal processing. Finally, a new method of optical pulse shape measurement was demonstrated with 3 ps time resolution, excellent power sensitivity and relative system simplicity. These experiments have opened up the field of temporal optics. Electro-optic sampling.