Averaging of Replicated Pulses for Enhanced-Dynamic-Range Single-Shot Measurement of Nanosecond Optical Pulses

Measuring optical pulse shapes beyond the dynamic range of oscilloscopes is achieved by temporal pulse stacking in a low-loss, passive, fiber-optic network. Optical pulses are averaged with their time-delayed replicas without introducing additional noise or jitter, allowing for high-contrast pulse-shape measurements of single-shot events. A dynamic-range enhancement of 3 bits is experimentally demonstrated and compared with conventional multishot averaging. This technique can be extended to yield an increase of up to 7 bits of additional dynamic range over nominal oscilloscope performance.