Experimental demonstration of compression of dispersed optical pulses by reflection from self-chirped optical fiber Bragg gratings

Abstract

Dispersion compensation is demonstrated experimentally by pulse compression with the use of chirped optical fiber Bragg gratings. The gratings chirp is self-induced by the Gaussian intensity profile of the 240-nm wavelength beam used for holographic sidewriting of the grating. Chirped pulses generated by a 1.55-microm gain-switched distributed-feedback laser with an initial pulse duration of 21 ps and a spectral width of 0.7 nm are compressed to 13 ps, in good agreement with theory.