Reconfigurable time-domain spectral shaping of an optical pulse stretched by a fiber Bragg grating

Abstract

We demonstrate a method for spectrally shaping optical pulses that is readily reconfigurable and can produce variable filter functions. This practical technique relies on a compact and robust 3.86-m-long linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating that chromatically disperses the pulse to $\sim 30 \mathrm{ns}$. We then shape the pulse envelope, and thus the pulse spectrum, with a programmable arbitrary waveform generator and an amplitude modulator to obtain several filter functions.