The compression of optical pulses using self-phase-modulation and linearly chirped Bragg-gratings in fibers

Abstract
We report the first demonstration of pulse compression in optical fiber using linearly chirped Bragg gratings as quadratic compressors for pulses spectrally broadened by self-phase modulation. With the system investigated an initial 2 ps, bandwidth limited pulse is compressed by a factor of >10. The experimental results are found to be in good agreement with analytical and numerical calculations. Such a system allows high quality compression of pulses in optical fiber for the first time.