%0 Journal Article %J Optics Letters %D 1999 %T Spatial-temporal wave mixing for space-to-time conversion %A Dan M. Marom %A Dmitriy Panasenko %A Pang-Chen Sun %A Yeshaiahu Fainman %X

A real-time spatial–temporal processor based on cascaded nonlinearities converts space-domain images to time-domain waveforms by the interaction of spectrally decomposed ultrashort pulses and spatially Fourier-transformed images carried by quasi-monochromatic light waves. We use four-wave mixing, achieved by cascaded second-order nonlinearities with type II noncollinear phase matching, for femtosecond-rate processing. We present a detailed analysis of the nonlinear mixing process with waves containing wide temporal and angular bandwidths. The wide bandwidths give rise to phase-mismatch terms in each process of the cascade. We define a complex spatial–temporal filter to characterize the effects of the phase-mismatch terms, modeling the deviations from the ideal system response. New experimental results that support our findings are presented.

%B Optics Letters %V 24 %P 563-565 %G eng %U https://www.osapublishing.org/ol/abstract.cfm?uri=ol-24-8-563 %N 8