Abstract

The generation of femtosecond optical pulses using the feedback from an external nonlinear cavity is now a well established technique. The principle consists of interfering a reference pulse with a chirped version of itself, where the chirping is due to self-phase modulation (SPM) in a Kerr-like material. By adjusting the relative phase between the pulses, it is possible to achieve pulse shortening at each round-trip and positive differential gain for the short pulse.

© 1992 Optical Society of America