Abstract

Generation of tunable and reconfigurable UWB signals is a major research field due to the substantial applications in fiber-wireless communication systems, pulsed radar, and sensor networks, among others. For this aim, photonic approaches based on Fourier transform pulse shapers are the most attractive devices [1,2]. There, the power spectrum of an input coherent pulse is arbitrarily shaped by using a spatial light modulator. Thus, after propagating the light through a first-order dispersive medium, a frequency-to-time mapping takes place. Consequently, the output light intensity is a scaled replica of the input power spectrum. The scale factor is only determined by the dispersion coefficient. Larger amounts of dispersion do not change the shape, but only the scale, so that electrical waveforms achieving the UWB requisite can be obtained after proper optical-to-electrical conversion.

© 2007 IEEE