Agile manipulation of the time-frequency distribution of high-speed electromagnetic waves

Controlling the temporal evolution of an electromagnetic (EM) wave’s frequency components, the so-called time-frequency (TF) distribution, in a versatile and real-time fashion remains very challenging, especially at the high speeds (> GHz regime) required in contemporary communication, imaging, and sensing applications. We propose a general framework for manipulating the TF properties of high-speed EM waves. Specifically, the TF distribution is continuously mapped along the time domain through phase-only processing, enabling its user-defined manipulation via widely-available temporal modulation techniques. The time-mapping operations can then be inverted to reconstruct the TF-processed signal. Using off-the-shelf telecommunication components, we demonstrate arbitrary control of the TF distribution of EM waves over a full bandwidth approaching 100 GHz with nanosecond-scale programmability and MHz-level frequency resolution. We further demonstrate applications for mitigating rapidly changing frequency interference terms and the direct synthesis of fast waveforms with customized TF distributions. The reported method represents a significant advancement in TF processing of EM waves and it fulfills the stringent requirements for many modern and emerging applications.