Programmable Schemes on Temporal Waveform Processing of Optical Pulse Trains

The programmable envelope shaping technique of high-repetition-rate optical pulse sequences with low-speed modulation is summarized in this letter. First, we reviewed our work on amplitude-only modulation approach for generating symmetric envelopes, including parabolic, step-like and binary patterns. Next, we reported our recent demonstration of asymmetric-enveloped pulse generation achieved by applying simultaneous amplitude and phase modulations. The asymmetric patterns we demonstrated include a trapezoid envelope and a random optical pattern. Finally, we analyze the influence of practical issues of the implementation on the generated optical pulse trains through numerical simulation. The newly proposed scheme provides flexibility in envelope processing and enriches the diversity of temporal pulse shapes.