Abstract

A complex spectral grating is accumulated by repeated application of a pair of low-power optical programming pulses to a short-term persistent inhomogeneously broadened transition in Tm:YAG at 4.5 K and then probed to investigate the buildup dynamics. The necessary frequency stability is obtained by locking a cw Ti:sapphire laser to a regenerating transient spectral hole in the same transition. Grating accumulation is demonstrated for both a periodic spectral grating, representing a true-time delay, and a complex spectral grating, permitting correlation-based pattern recognition. This work is a step toward demonstrating an optical coherent transient continuously programmed continuous processor.

© 2000 Optical Society of America

Optical coherent transient continuously programmed continuous processor

K. D. Merkel and W. R. Babbitt
Opt. Lett. 24(3) 172-174 (1999)

Temporally overlapped linear frequency-chirped pulse programming for true-time-delay applications

R. Reibel, Z. Barber, M. Tian, and W. R. Babbitt
Opt. Lett. 27(7) 494-496 (2002)

Variable-time-delay optical coherent transient signal processing

K. D. Merkel, W. R. Babbitt, K. E. Anderson, and K. H. Wagner
Opt. Lett. 24(20) 1386-1388 (1999)

Dynamics of broadband accumulated spectral gratings in Tm³⁺:YAG

Mingzhen Tian, Jun Zhao, Zachary Cole, Randy Reibel, and William Randall Babbitt
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 18(5) 673-678 (2001)

Fresnel diffraction on the edge of causality

Loïc Ménager, Ivan Lorgeré, and Jean-Louis Le Gouët
Opt. Lett. 25(18) 1316-1318 (2000)