High-resolution, background-free, time-to-space conversion by collinearly phase-matched sum-frequency generation

We report the first demonstration, to our knowledge, of time-to-space conversion of 1: 55 mu m femtosecond optical pulses using nondegenerate, collinearly phase-matched sum-frequency generation. A quasi-monochromatic and background-free output signal spanning a time window of 35 ps and with a pulse image width of 350 fs was achieved. The resulting serial-to-parallel resolution factor of 100 demonstrates the potential for all-optical complete frame demultiplexing of a 1 Tbit/s optical time-division multiplexing bit stream. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America