All-Fiber Format Compression of Frequency Chirped Pulses in Air-Guiding Photonic Crystal Fibers

Air-cored, photonic band-gap crystal fibers exhibiting low nonlinearity and anomalous chromatic dispersion in spectral ranges inaccessible to conventional fibers can be used in the realization of all-fiber-format pulse compressors with unprecedented peak powers and wavelength diversity. Linear compression of inherently chirped and prestretched pulses by factors ranging from 20 to 80 around 1.0 and $1.5\mu \mathrm{m}$ have allowed generation of pulses as short as 163 fs. The results show that totally integrated femtosecond fiber laser sources can be realized throughout the visible and near-infrared and point to the possibility of megawatt peak and tens of watt average in-fiber power levels.