All‐Optical Pulse Shaping in the Sub‐Picosecond Regime Based on Fiber Grating Devices

Abstract

Optical pulse shaping involves synthesizing the desired shape of the complex temporal envelope of an optical electromagnetic wave, and it plays a fundamental role in communication and computation systems. Pulse shaping techniques are required to generate advanced pulse waveforms that optimize the overall performance of a communication system. This chapter presents some interesting pulse shaping components that have been proposed and demonstrated simply based on passive linear filters, such as Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) or Long period gratings (LPGs). Fiber gratings are a stable and mature technology for the implementation of all‐optical pulse shapers. The chapter describes the recent advances in the design and implementation of fiber grating‐based pulse shapers that have enabled the achievement of ultrafast operation speed, corresponding to time resolutions down to the sub‐picosecond regime. It focuses on a recently developed THz‐bandwidth arbitrary optical pulse shaping theory and technique using fiber LPG devices.