Abstract

Optical pulses with simple temporal intensity profiles, e.g. flat-top and triangular shapes, are attractive for various photonic applications [1]. Recently, we have introduced a method for passive nonlinear pulse shaping which relies on the combination of pulse pre-chirping and propagation in a section of normally dispersive fibre (NDF) [2]. In this scheme, nonlinearity and dispersion in the NDF lead to various reshaping processes of an initial, conventional pulse according to the chirping value and power level at the input of the fibre. In particular, we have observed that triangular-shaped pulses can be generated for sufficiently high energies and a positive initial chirp parameter (using the definition iCt² for the phase profile). Figure 1 shows the pulse reshaping processes to a nearly ideal triangular intensity profile that can take place in a NDF for different C values, as obtained from numerical simulations.

© 2009 IEEE