Generation of high-quality sub-picosecond optical pulses using a combination of normal and anomalous dispersion fibers

A practical method for generating high-quality optical pulses of sub-picosecond pulse widths is presented. The method uses linear chirp generation in supercontinuum pulses in a normal dispersion fiber. This linear chirp is utilized by an anomalous dispersion fiber to shorten the pulse widths down to a few hundreds of femtoseconds. This compression method results in 0.28-ps 10-GHz optical pulses. We also demonstrate that optical filtering increases the pulse contrast ratio above 30 dB but widens the pulse to 0.32 ps. This pulse performance is sufficient for 640 Gb/s transmission