HOLOGRAPHY IN FREQUENCY-SELECTIVE MEDIA .3. SPECTRAL-SYNTHESIS OF ARBITRARY TIME-DOMAIN PULSE SHAPES

We study theoretically and experimentally the synthesis of arbitrary t ime-domain pulse shapes, using short laser pulses scattered by hologra ms stored in a spectrally selective hole-burning material. in general, writing holograms in spectrally selective materials results in cross talk and interference between different frequencies because of Kramers -Kronig dispersion relations. We discuss different ways to exclude the cross talk that disturbs faithful reproduction of the desired time-do main pulse shapes. In particular, we show that one can exclude the cro ss talk by writing holograms in a way that simulates a time-domain off set of the object pulse. To confirm our theoretical considerations we carry out experiments by writing persistent spectral hole-burning holo grams with a tunable dye laser in an organic dye-polymer system at low temperature. By reading out the time-domain response with subpicoseco nd white-light pulses we demonstrate the feasibility of spectral synth esis of light pulses with complicated amplitude and phase properties o n the time scale of hundreds of picoseconds with a subpicosecond time resolution.