Precise spectral phase filtering of broadband incoherent light with higher-order spatial dispersion compensation

Summary form only given. Incoherent broadband light sources have received attention for optical wavelength-division multiplexing and code-division multiple-access (CDMA) due to their simplicity, low cost and broad bandwidth. Motivated by CDMA applications, a few groups have implemented spectral phase coding of incoherent light. We use a programmable pulse shaper for spectral phase manipulation of broadband amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) from an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) centered at 1.55 /spl mu/m. A unique attribute of the work is the compensation of both higher order temporal and spatial dispersion, which allows us to generate quite complicated waveforms in close agreement with theory.