title: Wave-breaking-extended fiber supercontinuum generation for high compression ratio transform-limited pulse compression.
abstract: Wave-breaking often occurs when a short intense optical pulse propagates in a long normally dispersive optical fiber. This effect has conventionally been avoided in fiber (super-)continuum-based pulse compression because the accumulated frequency chirp of the output pulse cannot be fully compensated by a standard prism (or grating) pair. Thus, the spectral extending capability of the wave-breaking has not been utilized to shorten the compressed pulse. We demonstrate that wave-breaking-free operation is not necessary if a 4f pulse shaper-based compressor is employed to remove both the linear and nonlinear chirp of the output pulse. By propagating a 180 fs (FWHM) input pulse in a nonlinear photonic crystal fiber beyond the wave-breaking limit, we compress the wave-breaking-extended supercontinuum output pulse to the bandwidth-limited duration of 6.4 fs (FWHM). The combination of high compression ratio (28×) and short pulse width represents a significant improvement over that attained in the wave-breaking-free regime.
authors: Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors: Yuan
authors: Y
authors: Liu
authors: Haohua
authors: H
authors: Tu
authors: Stephen A
authors: SA
authors: Boppart
mesh_terms: D055100:Optical Fibers; D055620:Optical Phenomena