Encoding and decoding of femtosecond pulses.

We demonstrate the spreading of femtosecond optical pulses into picosecond-duration pseudonoise bursts. Spreading is accomplished by encoding pseudorandom binary phase codes onto the optical frequency spectrum. Subsequent decoding of the spectral phases restores the original pulse. We propose that frequency-domain encoding and decoding of coherent ultrashort pulses could form the basis for a rapidly reconfigurable, code-division multiple-access optical telecommunications network.