Patent ID: 8044655

Claim:
A method for measuring a pulse shape, comprising: a) generating an optical pulse to be measured from an electrical input pulse; b) passively replicating the pulse, including: b1) in a first splitting operation, splitting the pulse amplitude into a first part and a second part; b2) delaying one of the first and second parts with respect to the other part by a known temporal duration; b3) recombining the first and second parts; c) repeating steps b1-b3; d) acquiring a resultant pulse train of all replicated pulses, further comprising acquiring the entire waveform of each replicated pulse at a different time; e) temporally stacking the replicated pulses; f) temporally aligning the stacked pulses; g) obtaining an average pulse shape of the temporally aligned, replicated pulses; and h) generating an output optical pulse shape.