TEMPORAL MAGNIFICATION AND REVERSAL OF 100 GB/S OPTICAL-DATA WITH AN UP-CONVERSION TIME MICROSCOPE

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. © 1994 American Institute of Physics.