Waveform Distortions Due to Second-Order Dispersion and Dispersion Mismatches in a Temporal Pulse-Shaping System

Waveform distortions due to second-order dispersion (SOD) and dispersion mismatches in a temporal pulse-shaping (TPS) system for ultrashort arbitrary waveform generation (AWG) are studied in this paper. A closed-form analytical expression for the generated waveform incorporating the SOD and the dispersion mismatches is presented. A technique to eliminate the SOD-induced waveform distortions using a predistorted modulating signal is proposed. The influence of the limited bandwidth of the modulating signal on the waveform generation is studied. A comprehensive comparison between the TPS and the spatial-light-modulator-based techniques for AWG is also presented.