Picosecond pulse shaping and compression with FETs

A simple picosecond pulse shaping and compression circuit with a 0.3 μm GaAs MESFET is reported. A 2V amplitude negative pulse with full width at half maximum of ∼30 ps is obtained at the 50 Ω output. The observed pulse shaping and the pulse width compression factor G pw ≥2.6 show the beneficial influence of the strongly nonlinear regime of the FET on the performances. The results and further pulse narrowing are discussed using time domain simulations of the pulser