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IEEE photonics journal

Microwave Photonic Pulse Generation With High Transfer Rate and Precision Pulse Width by Partly Temporally-Overlapped Photon Echo Excitation

Xiangrong Wang, Shuanggen Zhang, Jinlei Liu, Shumin Wang

Published Dec 20, 2021• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Microwave photonic pulse generation has intrinsic high speed and large bandwidth, and it can overcome the sampling-rate limitation in the electrical domain. Herein, we propose a partly temporally-overlapped photon echo scheme to generate microwave pulses with a high data transfer rate and precision pulse width. The partly overlapped chirped control pulse has the same chirped rate segments but different time delays. The time delay between the segments and the number of segments can be adjusted to achieve a controllable multipulse photon echo train. We developed a theoretical model based on the photon echo process and performed simulations to obtain nonlinear chirped periodic spectral grating in a Tm3+:YAG crystal and gave the time delay provided by the spectral grating to the probe pulse at different instantaneous frequencies. We further generated pulse code modulation signals to verify the performance of the target signal. The proposed signal-generation scheme has potential applications in microwave photonics and modern radar systems.

DOI
10.1109/jphot.2021.3136669

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Microwave photonic pulse generation has intrinsic high speed and large bandwidth, and it can overcome the sampling-rate limitation in the electrical domain. Herein, we propose a partly temporally-overlapped photon echo scheme to generate microwave pulses with a high data transfer rate and precision pulse width. The partly overlapped chirped control pulse has the same chirped rate segments but different time delays. The time delay between the segments and the number of segments can be adjusted to achieve a controllable multipulse photon echo train. We developed a theoretical model based on the photon echo process and performed simulations to obtain nonlinear chirped periodic spectral grating in a Tm3+:YAG crystal and gave the time delay provided by the spectral grating to the probe pulse at different instantaneous frequencies. We further generated pulse code modulation signals to verify the performance of the target signal. The proposed signal-generation scheme has potential applications in microwave photonics and modern radar systems.
A novel technique for programming broadband true-time delays that uses two frequency-offset temporally overlapped linear frequency-chirped pulses to produce periodic spectral gratings in an inhomogeneously broadened absorber is presented. Advantages of this technique include its ability to use chirped pulses that are longer than the coherence time of the crystal, less stringent laser frequency-stability requirements for grating accumulation, lower power requirements, a simplified system design, and the ability to tune broadband (multigigahertz) delays over a wide dynamic range (picoseconds to microseconds).
In this paper, we propose a scheme for photon echo chirped detection process composed of additional modulation pulses to obtain controllable geometric phase. The geometric phases are observed and measured by a beat signal between the photon echo field and the chirped field. The chirped detection model reveals that the period of the beat signal increases as the chirped rate and delay time increase. Additionally, a two-fold relationship between the modulation phase and the echo shift phase is obtained. The numerical simulations accord with the theoretical results obtained by the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method.
It is predicted that linearly chirped optical excitation pulses give rise to photon echoes whose shortness is limited only by the total material bandwidth that contributes to the echo signal. The photon echo process acts as a frequency-dependent optical delay line whose dispersion is determined by the chirp rate of the excitation pulses rather than by their bandwidth. Consequently, long and short pulses can be compressed with equal facility without complicated alignment procedure. Accumulated echoes have similar properties and can be used with trains of weak excitation pulses.
We report on the dynamics of two-pulse photon echoes in a two-level system. We consider two different types of excitation pulse pairs: pulses with the same carrier envelope phases (CEP pulse pairs) and pulse pairs cut from the same carrier wave train (labeled as normal pulse pairs). We show that for CEP pulse pairs when the pulses overlap somewhat the photon-echo emission time is strongly sensitive to the relative phase (i.e., delay time) between the two pulses. We also show how the photon-echo emission time for such CEP pulse pairs depends on the dephasing time of the polarization (T2{T}_{2}T2​) and the pulse width of the applied pulses. This phase sensitivity can be utilized to control the emission time of the photon echo which may prove useful in storing and retrieving light signals from an atomic ensemble. Our results also inform the interpretation of photon-echo signals at short delay time when used to measure fast coherence decay rates.
Creating and controlling well-defined single-photon states is important for many quantum enhanced technologies. Information can be encoded in any degree of freedom associated with a single-photon field excitation, for example in the polarization or transverse spatial mode structure. The ability to encode multiple qubits in these states is desirable for high data transmission rates and increased information processing capacity. The spectral-temporal domain offers a large Hilbert space for encoding information, well suited to integrated optical architectures owing to the low cross-talk between channels. Indeed, time-frequency encoding is an integral component of existing information technologies infrastructure. Thus, complete, coherent control of the spectral-temporal mode structure of light is essential to advancing optical quantum technologies. Arbitrary control of single-photon states has been demonstrated in the polarization and spatial-momentum degrees of freedom however, is yet to be established in the spectral-temporal domain. Recently it was shown that spectral-temporal pulse shaping is experimentally feasible using nonlinear optical methods. However, such techniques can introduce noise photons, are challenging to implement deterministically and require specially prepared auxiliary pump pulses. Furthermore, they are typically only possible at relatively low repetition rates to avoid damage of nonlinear optical materials. Here, we demonstrate deterministic pulse shaping of single-photon wave packets by introducing a time-varying phase. Applying linear or quadratic phase to the wave packet introduces a spectral shift or spectral broadening, respectively. Achieving significant spectral manipulation requires temporal-phase modulation on the order of π. The phase must also vary on the same time scale as the optical pulses, approximately 1 ps in duration here. This relatively rapid phase variation is achieved using a fast electro-optic phase modulator. The modulator is driven by a time-varying voltage that is synchronized with a pulse train of single-photon wave packets for accurate temporal phase control. In this thesis, we experimentally demonstrate control of the spectral-temporal state of single-photon wave packets using this method. Heralded single-photon wave packets are generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion pumped by a frequency-doubled Titanium-Sapphire laser oscillator with 80 MHz repetition rate. To achieve significant modulation of single-photon pulses a 10 V peak-to-peak radio-frequency signal of 40 GHz drives the phase modulator, which requires approximately 3.6 V to achieve a π phase shift. The signal is synchronized with the oscillator pulse train using custom designed electronics. Details of these electronics are presented, resulting in a robust phase and amplitude controllable 40 GHz voltage source, phase locked to the single-photon pulse train. To demonstrate the utility of this pulse-shaping method we experimentally show spectral shearing of almost 1 nm for single-photon wave packets with 830 nm central wavelength and 1 nm bandwidth. Measurement of the second-order intensity correlation before and after the wave-packet manipulation remains constant within uncertainty of the measurement, showing that the quantum nature of the single-photon source is not deteriorated by the modulator. Preservation of the wave-packet coherence is verified by two-photon interference between spectrally sheared and non-modulated single-photons.
Temporal compressions of optical pulses and pulse trains have been performed by the photon-echo process in Tm-doped YAG at 793 nm. Single-pulse temporal compression by almost a factor of 500 from 10 micros to 22 ns and pulse train compression by a factor of 14 from 5micros to 350 ns with a high-speed frequency-tunable external-cavity diode laser are demonstrated. It is suspected that significantly higher compression could be obtained by improved control of the laser frequency and laser frequency chirps. Theoretically, Tm-doped YAG should be capable of compressing single pulses by almost a factor of 10(7).