Temporal point-by-point arbitrary waveform synthesis beyond tera sample per second

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 2798 - 10
• Main Authors: Guan, Yiran, Wang, Guangying, Zhi, Yanyan, Chen, Jingxu, Li, Lingzhi, Zhang, Jiejun, Yao, Jianping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 21.03.2025; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/624/1075/1081; 639/624/1075/187; Analog to digital converters; Electronic systems; High speed; Humanities and Social Sciences; Information technology; Laser mode locking; Lasers; multidisciplinary; Photonics; Sampling; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Synthesis; Synthesizers; Target detection; Waveforms; Wireless communications
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58052-6

Arbitrary waveform synthesizers are indispensable in modern information technology, yet electronic counterparts are limited by the speed of analog-to-digital converters to hundreds of GSa/s. While photonic-assisted synthesizers offer potential to surpass this ceiling, scalability and reconfigurability remain challenges. Here, we propose a temporal point-by-point arbitrary waveform synthesizer beyond TSa/s, leveraging an optical temporal Vernier caliper in the photonic synthetic dimension. The system, combining a mode-locked laser and a fiber loop, controls the sampling rate of synthesized waveforms by exploiting a slight detuning between the pulse period and the round-trip delay of the fiber loop. The experiment demonstrates generated waveforms with ultra-high, tunable sampling rate up to 1 TSa/s, an order of magnitude higher than state-of-the-art electronic counterparts. Additionally, the system supports up to 10.4 kilo-points in memory depth. As application examples, the generation of communication waveforms for high-speed wireless communications and linearly chirped microwave waveforms for high-resolution multi-target detection is demonstrated. Here the authors demonstrate a temporal Vernier caliper for arbitrary waveform synthesis with a sampling rate over 1 TSa/s. These results, which surpass current electronic systems by an order of magnitude, have potential applications in radar and high-speed communications.