Subpicosecond electrooptic sampling: Principles and applications

This paper reviews the principles and applications of electrooptic sampling for the characterization of repetitive ultrafast electrical transients. Electrooptic sampling is an electric field sensitive technique that utilizes ultrashort optical pulses as "sampling gates" via the Pockels effect in electrooptic media and has demonstrated subpicosecond temporal resolution and microvolt sensitivity. The technique can be adapted to characterize a wide variety of picosecond electronic devices such as field-effect transistors and photodetectors as well as probe complete integrated circuits with high temporal and spatial resolution.