Temporal Compression of Light

The 5890 A output from a CW dye laser was converted into a train of 0.5 ns pulses by frequency modulation and passage through a near-resonant atomic vapor delay line of Na. The theory of the process is discussed in both the time and frequency domains. Using a modulation index of 120 at a frequency of 17.8 MHz, we obtained values for the temporal compression ratio and intensity enhancement of 112 and 14, easily the largest that have been reported. © 1978 IEEE