Dynamic Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation (O-AWG) in a continuous fiber

We present a low-loss dynamic waveform shaping technique for high-repetition-rate signals by independent phase and amplitude control of spectral lines in a continuous fiber. Our system employs uniform FBGs to separate the spectral lines of a modulated CW signal, and provides independent amplitude and phase control for each line via in-line polarization controller and in-line fiber stretcher respectively. Our system offers the advantage of negligible insertion loss, and thus can be scaled up to control many lines to achieve high temporal resolution and better shape control.;We modelled and simulated our O-AWG system and investigated the effects of finite linewidth and finite number of line. Then a testbed was assembled to test a 3-line and a 5-line system. Several waveforms were experimentally demonstrated with a spectral resolution of 0.12nm and a temporal resolution of 17ps for the 5-line system; 0.16nm spectral resolution and 25ps temporal resolution for the 3-line system.