Abstract

Circuits for generation picosecond step and pulse signals have many applications in wide bandwidth time-domain and microwave instrumentation. The silicon step-recovery diode is widely used in sampling oscilloscopes and network analyzers for gating sampling diodes but has limited utility in optoelectronic and ultrafast applications due to its relatively slow speed (30-40 ps). Conversely, photodiodes and photoconductors produce much narrower electrical pulses [1,2] but the real pulse generator is a femtosecond or picosecond mode-locked laser. Using only RF drive, we have measured a 6 V, 1.8 ps falltime step output as well as a 2.4 V, 4.4 ps full width at half maximum (FWHM) pulse output from monolithic GaAs nonlinear transmission line (NLTL) circuits.

© 1990 Optical Society of America