We present the operational principles and results of a temporal imaging system, configured as a time microscope, that achieves 103 x magnification of waveforms with 300-fs resolution and a 5.7-ps field of view. The quadratic-phase time-lens element is realized by upconversion of the dispersed input waveform with a linearly chirped 5-THz bandwidth pump. The system allows expansion of ultrafast optical waveforms to a time scale that is directly accessible with slower conventional technology, in real time, on a single-shot basis.
We have developed an up-conversion time microscope capable of expanding ultrafast optical wave forms to a time scale accessible to ordinary sampling oscilloscopes. In this system, a 100 Gb/s optical word is magnified (slowed down) to a rate of 8.55 Gb/s with a time lens placed between two dispersive delay lines. The time lens is a nonlinear crystal which mixes the dispersed data with a linearly chirped pump pulse thus imparting a linear frequency sweep to the unconverted wave form. A second dispersive delay line completes the arrangement and forms the temporal analog of a single lens spatial imaging system resulting in a time reversed wave form with a magnification M=−11.7.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.