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EditOPTICAL ARBITRARY WAVEFORM GENERATION ($9.5M DARPA OAWG project: with MIT, Multiplex, KTH, Inphi, and Inplane)
Extending upon the O-CDMA concept, it is possible to achieve ultra-high capacity all-optical arbitrary waveform generation covering an optical bandwidth of ~100 THz. Possible applications include ultra-wideband secure communications in phase and amplitude modulation, optical signal synthesis, ultra-high resolution remote sensing and LADARs. The new $9.5 M project awarded to MIT and UCDavis pursues ultrahigh capacity and precision optical arbitrary waveform generation. Fig 1 shows the schematic. Starting with a high-precision optical comb generator from MIT producing accurate optical comb lines from a stabilized mode locked laser, the optical arbitrary waveform generation encoder from UC Davis will modulate the phase and amplitude of each comb line. The modulation bandwidth of the phase and amplitude modulations will be equal to the comb spacing so that the arbitrary waveform generation covering the entire optical spectrum is possible. The optical arbitrary waveform generation device includes monolithically integrated amplitude and phase modulators and arrayed waveguide gratings. Fig 2 shows a layout with 32 channel * 40 GHz spacing for 1.28 THz optical arbitrary waveform generation on a monolithically integrated InP device. Efficient high-speed modulations on each spectral element on the InP waveguide requires careful RF-photonic design of phase and amplitude modulators with velocity and impedance matching. Future devices will include photonic crystal based optical comb generators and optical arbitrary waveform generators.
EditOptical Arbitrary Waveform Generation Methods
Simply put, optical arbitrary waveform generation (OAWG) would be the generation of any optical waveform with a certain bandwidth without any other constraints. Several schemes exist to generate arbitrary waveforms. Those include direct time-domain modulation, Fourier domain synthesis, and a hybrid approach combining the time and frequency domain.

150 GHz Repetitive OAWG. Quadratic spectral phase waveform (a) Spectrum (b) Time-Domain (c) X-FROG(1) Trace. Transform limited phase waveform (c) Spectrum (d) Time-Domain (e)X-FROG Trace(1).
Edit10, 20, 40 GHz OAWG using Silica AWGs
EditPublications
1.
"Modulation-Format Agile, Reconfigurable Tb/s Transmitter Based on Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation" by
David J. Geisler, Nicolas K. Fontaine, Tingting He, Ryan P. Scott, Loukas Paraschis, Jonathan P. Heritage, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Optics Express, Vol. 17, No. 18, pp. 15911-15925, August, 2009.
2.
"Near quantum-limited, single-shot coherent arbitrary optical waveform measurements" by
Nicolas K. Fontaine, Ryan P. Scott, Jonathan P. Heritage, and S. J. Ben Yoo, in Optics Express, Vol. 17, No. 15, pp. 12332-12344, July, 2009.
3.
"Near Quantum-Limited Single-Shot Full-Field Measurements of Arbitrarily Shaped Optical Waveforms" by
N. K. Fontaine, R. P. Scott, C. Yang, J. P. Heritage, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO 2009), Paper CThDD7, June, 2009.
4.
"10 GHz and 20 GHz Channel Spacing High-Resolution AWGs on InP" by
J. H. Baek, F. M. Soares, W. Jiang, N. K. Fontaine, R. G. Broeke, J. Cao, F. Olsson, S. Lourdudoss, and S. J. B. Yoo, in IEEE Photonic Technology Letters, Vol. 21, No. 5, pp. 298-300, March, 2009.
5.
"Planar Regrowth Simplifies Photonic Integration of InP Chips" by
S. J. Ben Yoo, Sebastian Lurdudoss, and Won T. Tsang, in Compound Semiconductor, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 14-16, March, 2009.
6.
"Modulation-Format Transparent Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation Based Optical-Label Switching Transmitter with All-Optical Label Extraction Using FBG" by
Tingting He, Nicolas K. Fontaine, Ryan P. Scott, David J. Geisler, J. P. Heritage, K. Okamoto, and S. J. B. Yoo, in IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS), Paper WU6, 2009.
7.
"Dynamic Phase-Error Compensation for High-Resolution InP Arrayed-Waveguide Grating Using Electro-optic Effect" by
W. Jiang, N. K. Fontaine, F. M. Soares, J. H. Baek, K. Okamoto, F. Olsson, S. Lourdudoss and S. J. B. Yoo, in Technical Digest of LEOS 2008, Paper MF2, November, 2008.
8.
"360 Gb/s Data Modulation with Dispersion Precompensation Using Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation" by
D. J. Geisler, N. K. Fontaine, R. P. Scott, J. P. Heritage, K. Okamoto, and S. J. B. Yoo, in The 21st Annual Meeting of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS 2008), pp. 822-823, Paper ThQ3, November, 2008.
9.
"Active Arrayed-Waveguide Grating with Amplitude and Phase Control for Arbitrary Filter Generation and High-Order Dispersion Compensation" by
N. K. Fontaine, Jie Yang, Wei Jiang, D. J. Geisler, K. Okamoto, Ray Huang, and S. J. B. Yoo, accepted for publication in Technical Digest of European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC'08), Brussels, Belgium. (2008), Paper Mo.4.C.3, September, 2008.
10.
"Microwave Velocity and Impedance Tuning of Traveling-wave Modulator using Ion Implantation for Monolithic Integrated Photonic Systems" by
Sang-Woo Seo, John Yan, Jong-Hwa Baek, Francisco M. Soares, Ronald Broeke, Anh-Vu Pham, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Vol. 50, No. 8, pp. 2151-2155, August, 2008.
11.
"Compact 10 GHz Loopback Arrayed-Waveguide Grating for High-Fidelity Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation" by
N. K. Fontaine, R. P. Scott, C. Yang, D. J. Geisler, J. P. Heritage, K. Okamoto, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Optics Letters, Vol. 33, No. 15, pp. 1714-1716, August, 2008.
12.
"Rapid Updating of Optical Arbitrary Waveforms via Time-domain Multiplexing" by
R. P. Scott, N. K. Fontaine, C. Yang, D. J. Geisler, K. Okamoto, J. P. Heritage, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Optics Letters, Vol. 33, No. 10, pp. 1068-1070, May, 2008.
13.
"High-Resolution, Loop-Back AWG for Compact, High-Fidelity, Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation" by
N. K. Fontaine, D. J. Geisler, R. P. Scott, C. Yang, F. M. Soares, A. Karalar, J. Yang, K. Okamoto, J. P. Heritage, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Technical Digest of IEEE/OSA Optical Fiber Communication Conference, Paper OTuC7, February, 2008.
14.
"Sinusoidal phase modulation as a gate for FROG" by
N. K. Fontaine, R. P. Scott, J. P. Heritage, B. H. Kolner, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO 2007), Paper CFF5, May, 2007.
15.
"3.5-THz Wide, 175 Mode Optical Comb Source" by
R. P. Scott, N. K. Fontaine, J. P. Heritage, B. H. Kolner, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC 2007), Paper OWJ3, March, 2007.
16.
" Monolithically Integrated InP Photonic Micro Systems on a Chip for O-CDMA and OAWG Applications" by
S. W. Seo, F. M. Soares, J. H. Baek, W. Jiang, N. K. Fontaine, R. P. Scott, C. Yang, D. J. Geisler, J. Yan, R. G. Broeke, J. Cao, F. Olsson, S. Lourdudoss, A. H. Pham, and S. J. Ben Yoo, in Technical Digest of IEEE/OSA Photonics in Switching 2007, Paper TuP14, 2007.
17.
"Complete characterization of precise line-by-line optical arbitrary waveform generation with XFROG" by
N. K. Fontaine, R. P. Scott, J. Cao, K. Okamoto, J. P. Heritage, B. H. Kolner, and S. J. B. Yoo, in Technical Digest of ECOC'06, September, 2006.
1. XFROG