Photonic Microwave Arbitrary Waveform Generation Using a Virtually Imaged Phased-Array (VIPA) Direct Space-to-Time Pulse Shaper

We present the first direct space-to-time pulse shaper using a virtually imaged phased array as the spectral disperser. We use this pulse shaper to demonstrate generation of 10-50-GHz arbitrary microwave waveforms with time apertures as large as 1.0 ns and peak-to-peak amplitudes as high as 400 mV.