Nanosecond Pulse Shaping with Fiber-Based Electro-Optical Modulators and a Double-Pass Tapered Amplifier

TL;DR

This paper presents a fiber-based system capable of generating precisely shaped, frequency-chirped optical pulses on sub-nanosecond to ten nanoseconds timescales, using electro-optical modulators and a double-pass tapered amplifier.

Contribution

It introduces a novel fiber-based setup for generating high-speed, frequency-chirped, and amplitude-shaped optical pulses with high power amplification in a compact configuration.

Findings

Achieved frequency chirps up to 5 GHz in 2 ns

Generated pulse widths as short as 0.15 ns

Amplified pulses to several hundred milliwatts

Abstract

We describe a system for generating frequency-chirped and amplitude-shaped pulses on time scales from sub-nanosecond to ten nanoseconds. The system starts with cw diode-laser light at 780 nm and utilizes fiber-based electro-optical phase and intensity modulators, driven by an arbitrary waveform generator, to generate the shaped pulses. These pulses are subsequently amplified to several hundred mW with a tapered amplifier in a delayed double-pass configuration. Frequency chirps up to 5 GHz in 2 ns and pulse widths as short as 0.15 ns have been realized.