Device and method for generating bursts of picosecond optical sub-pulses

A device for generating bursts of optical sub-pulses, comprising:

• a light generating assembly generating seed optical pulses each having a pulse duration, an amplitude profile and a spectral profile;
• a phase modulator imposing a periodic phase modulation on said seed pulses, said periodic phase modulation having a modulation frequency and a modulation amplitude jointly selected to spread the spectral profile of each of said seed pulses over a plurality of time-dependent spectral components;
• and
• a spectral filtering assembly spectrally filtering each of said seed pulses to retain therein only selected ones of said time-dependent spectral components, said filtering creating gaps in the amplitude profile of the seed pulses, said seed pulses thereby defining said bursts of sub-pulses.