CThQ1.

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Pulse compression techniques using highly nonlinear fibers

T. Inoue, J. Hiroishi, R. Miyabe, N. Kumano, M. Takahashi, M. Sakano, T. Yagi, and Y. Mimura
Fitel Photonics Laboratory, Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd.
6, Yawata-Kaigandori, Ichihara, Chiba, 290-8555 Japan
inoue.takashi@furukawa.co.jp

Abstract: We review pulse compression technique based on “comb-like profiled fiber (CPF)”, com-
prised of alternate concatenations of highly nonlinear fiber and anomalous-dispersion fiber. We show
CPF has truly practical and flexible features for optical pulse compression.
c 2007 Optical Society of America

OCIS codes: (060.5530) Pulse propagation and solitons; (060.4370) Nonlinear optics, fibers;

1. Introduction
Optical pulse compression is an important technique to generate a short optical pulse used in telecom and non-telecom
fields. Especially, pulse compression scheme based on nonlinear fiber optics is a promising candidate for realizing
a practical and functional short optical pulse source [1]. We have developed low-dispersion-slope highly nonlinear
fibers (HNLFs) [2, 3] for various kinds of applications of ultra-fast optical signal processing, and we have also applied
HNLF to optical pulse compressor in the form of “comb-like profiled fiber (CPF)” [4–15], that is comprised of alternate
concatenations of HNLF and anomalous-dispersion fibers such as single-mode fiber (SMF).
In this paper, we summarize CPF technologies for optical pulse compression, where the features, design issues,
and recently reported experimental results are introduced.

2. Features and design issues of CPF

CPF usually consists of HNLF and SMF, except for specific cases that hole-assisted fiber (HAF) [12] or zero dispersion-
slope nonzero dispersion-shifted fiber (ZDS-NZDSF) [16] are used instead of SMF. HNLF has nearly zero disper-
sion and a large nonlinearity. For example, HNLF typically has the nonlinear coefficient of γ = (2π/λ)(n2 /Aeff ) ∼
15 W−1 km−1 , which is ten times larger than SMF. Note here that n2 and Aeff are the Kerr coefficient and the effective
area of a fiber, respectively, and λ is the wavelength. On the other hand, SMF has a large anomalous dispersion but a
small nonlinearity. Hence, the nonlinearity as well as the dispersion exhibit comb-like profiles for CPF. The structure
of CPF originates from comb-like dispersion profiled fiber (CDPF) [17], which is comprised of alternate concatena-
tions of dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF) and SMF. Since the nonlinear coefficient of DSF is comparable to that of SMF,
only dispersion exhibits comb-like profile for CDPF.
The use of HNLF having a large nonlinearity and a low dispersion-slope brings numerous benefits to CPF as a
pulse compression fiber. At first, a short-length structure and/or a low-input-power operation of pulse compression are
possible for CPF, because the nonlinear effect is efficiently induced in HNLF thanks to its large nonlinearity, and the
fiber length and/or the optical power required for generating a certain amount of nonlinear effect are reduced. Secondly,
low-dispersion-slope characteristic of HNLF contributes widely wavelength-tunable operation of pulse compression
in CPF [8–13]. This is because the dispersion of low dispersion-slope HNLF remains small even if the operating wave-
length is widely varied, and the nonlinear effect occurs constantly without being disturbed by the dispersion. Finally,
a large tolerance of HNLF to small-diameter bending is beneficial for realizing a compact module of a compression
fiber [12, 15]. From the features shown above, we can conclude that low-dispersion-slope HNLF characterizes CPF as
truly practical and flexible optical pulse compressor.
To design a CPF effectively, we have developed a design method based on stationary rescaled pulse (SRP)-
propagation [8, 18]. SRP is a nonlinear stationary pulse that propagates through a CPF in self-similar manner; SRP
has similar waveforms before and after propagating through a CPF, and the waveforms are associated with each other
through a rescaling formula. Using the proposed method, we can easily design a highly efficient CPF [8] as well as
nearly adiabatic and high-quality one [19].

3. Examples of pulse compression results

Table 1 summarizes recently reported results of pulse compression experiment using CPFs, where frep and λin are the
repetition rate and the central wavelength of the input pulse, respectively, and ∆τin and ∆τout represent the FWHM
(full width at half maximum) of the pulses before and after compression, respectively. We note that a step of CPF is
defined as a pair of a HNLF and a SMF (or another anomalous-dispersion fiber).
 CThQ1.pdf

Table 1. Summary of pulse compression results based on CPF.

Type of frep ∆τin ∆τout λin CPF step
Ref. Feature
input pulse [GHz] [ps] [ps] [nm] number
[4] Beat 104 5 0.33 1565 5 -
[5] Beat 160 3.125 0.75 1550 6 -
[6] Beat 160 3.125 0.32 1555 40 -
[7] Beat 1000 0.5 0.1 1551 15 -
[8] Beat + CPF 40 7 0.37 1550 4 -
[9] LNM (CSRZ) 40 12.5 3.3 1540-1560 6 λ-tunable
[10] LNM (RZ) 40 10 2.7 1530-1560 3 λ-tunable
[8] LNM (RZ) 40 8.5 1.8 1530-1610 6 λ-tunable
[11] LNM (RZ) 9-15 15 0.9 1530-1560 17 λ and frep tunable
λ-tunable,
[12] LNM (RZ) 40 8.5 3.0 1530-1570 3
HNLF + HAF
LNM (RZ)+ λ-tunable, HNLF+ Fig. 1. Conventional (left) and
[13] 40 4 0.1 1530-1610 5
soliton conv. ZDS-NZDSF [16]
newly developed (right) [15]
[14] GS-DFB-LD 0.5-0.005 11.5-16.5 0.5 1558 13 frep -tunable CPF modules.
[15] MLLD 10 2.4 0.89 1550 4 Floppy-size module

One can see in Table 1 that pulse compression experiments were performed with wide variety of the conditions
such as the types of the input pulse sources, the repetition rates, the input and output widths, and the operational
wavelengths. In addition, the compression efficiencies are also widely different for each case. While highly efficient
but low-quality pulse compression are achieved with CPF having less step numbers [8, 13], high-quality but low-
efficiency compression are demonstrated with CPF having much step numbers [6, 11]. These facts indicate that CPF
can operate very flexibly, and we can optimize the design of a CPF for each specific condition of pulse compression.
Some results of wavelength-tunable pulse compression were reported [9–13], where we used low dispersion-slope
HNLF for all cases. Among them, use of low dispersion-slope anomalous-dispersion fiber was particularly effective for
expanding the operating conditions. In fact, we proposed dispersion-flattened CPF structure employing ZDS-NZDSF
instead of SMF, and we achieved 100 fs pulse generation with the tunable range of 80 nm [13].
Although the total length of a CPF depends on the specifications as a pulse compressor, it is in the order of
hundreds of meters in many cases shown in Table 1. One might be then afraid of the size of a module for CPF. For
the purpose of down-sizing, we developed a one-bobbin CPF module applying high-strength splicing and recoating
techniques to each of concatenating points between HNLF and SMF [15]. Figure 1 shows a conventional (left) and a
newly developed floppy-disk-sized one-bobbin CPF module (right). A CPF module can be practically small enough to
be used as a component in an apparatus that requires a pulse compression fiber.

4. Summary
We reviewed CPF technologies for optical pulse compression, where we showed that low dispersion-slope HNLF
played an important role to improve the characteristics of CPF as a practical and flexible pulse compressor.

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