Generation of 33-fsec pulses at 1.32 microm through a high-order soliton effect in a single-mode optical fiber.

Pulse shortening by a factor of 2700x at 1.32 microm has been realized by means of a two-stage pulse compression. In the first stage, 90-psec pulses from a cw mode-locked Nd:YAG laser were compressed to ~1.5 psec by using a standard fiber-grating-pair configuration. Subsequent propagation of these pulses through ~20 m of single-mode optical fiber with a minimum dispersion at 1.27 microm led to a final pulse width of 33 fsec. This represents the shortest reported pulse generated at 1.32 microm by using the technique described above as well as the largest overall compression factor using optical fibers yet reported.