All-optical high-speed temporal random pattern generation based on photonic time stretch

We propose a novel all-optical temporal random pattern generation scheme based on photonic time stretch involving cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) with different chirped spectral response. The overall spectral response represents a broadband random spectral pattern. Temporal random patterns can then be generated thanks to photonic time stretch which mirrors spectrum encoding to temporal waveform. Tuning of the generated temporal patterns is achieved using a rapidly tunable optical delay module in one of the MZIs.