Incoherent-light temporal stretching of high-speed intensity waveforms.

We propose and demonstrate experimentally the first incoherent-light scheme for temporal imaging (magnification) of intensity waveforms. The scheme is based on a time-domain equivalent of a pinhole camera under incoherent illumination, involving two dispersive lines and temporal intensity modulation with a short gate. We report incoherent-light temporal stretching of radiofrequency waveforms by a magnification factor of 2.86, with a time-bandwidth product exceeding 160, i.e., a resolution of ~50 ps over a temporal aperture of ~8 ns, totally avoiding the use of chirp-controlled pulsed lasers. This work opens up new perspectives for realization of many critical high-speed signal-processing modules using practical incoherent light-wave schemes.