Temporal cavities as temporal mode filters for frequency combs

Abstract

Broadband temporal modes of pulsed optical fields have been recently recognized as very promising for photonic quantum information processing and time-frequency metrology. Exploiting their full potential demands efficient and flexible tools for their manipulation. Among the tools demonstrated surprisingly the most basic, a single-mode temporal filter, is missing. In this work, we propose an experimentally feasible approach to realize a genuine single-mode temporal filter that is based on the concept of temporal cavity, a device with temporal mode-dependent resonances in the basis of frequency comb modes. This functionality is achieved as temporal-domain analogy of spatial-mode cleaner cavities. This device will enable robust temporal mode filtering and detection, opening new prospects in time-frequency metrology and multidimensional quantum information processing.