Femtosecond direct space-to-time pulse shaping

The direct space-to-time (DST) pulse shaping apparatus is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The discussion shows how the operation of the DST pulse shaper may be understood in terms of the femtosecond response of a generalized spectrometer. A complete discussion of the advantages and tradeoffs of utilizing this pulse-shaping configuration is given, including the direct scaling between the masking function and the output temporal intensity profile, system efficiency, spectral resolution, and temporal window, compensation/cancellation of chirp, and generation of multiple output waveforms.