Low-latency full-field temporal magnification based on spectral compression

Temporal magnification is an emerging technology for the observation of single-shot optical signals with irregular and ultrafast dynamics,which exceed the speed,precision,and record length of conventional digitizers.Conventional temporal magnification schemes suffer from transmission delay and large volume of dispersive elements.Because only the signal envelope can be magnified in the dispersion-based schemes,real-time full-field(phase and amplitude)measurement for a complex ultrafast optical signal remains an open challenge.Here,a bandwidth-compressed temporal magnification scheme for low-latency full-field measurements of ultrafast dynamics is proposed.Unlike the dispersion-based schemes,temporal magnification of a complex optical signal is achieved by bandwidth compression.The bandwidth is coherently compressed by the Vernier effect relying on the detuned free spectral range of a periodic optical filter and time lens.Experimentally,a temporal magnification factor of 224 is realized,and full-field measurements for picosecond pulses are demonstrated.The proposal eliminates the dependence on dispersive elements and shows great potential in integration,which may pave a new path toward full-field measurement for nonrepetitive and statistically rare signals.