Rapid updating of optical arbitrary waveforms via time-domain multiplexing

We demonstrate high-fidelity optical arbitrary waveform generation with $5\mathrm{GHz}$ waveform switching via time-domain multiplexing. Compact, integrated waveform shapers based on silica arrayed-waveguide grating pairs with $10\mathrm{GHz}$ channel spacing are used to shape (line-by-line) two different waveforms from the output of a $10\text{-}\mathrm{mode}\times 10\mathrm{GHz}$ optical frequency comb generator. Characterization of the time multiplexer’s complex transfer function (amplitude and phase) by frequency-resolved optical gating permits compensation of its impact on the switched waveforms and matching of the measured and target waveforms to better than $G^{\prime }=5\%$.