All-fiber format compression of frequency chirped pulses in air-guiding photonic crystal fibers.

Air-cored, photonic band-gap crystal fibers exhibiting low nonlinearity and anomalous chromatic dispersion in spectral ranges inaccessible to conventional fibers can be used in the realization of all-fiber-format pulse compressors with unprecedented peak powers and wavelength diversity. Linear compression of inherently chirped and prestretched pulses by factors ranging from 20 to 80 around 1.0 and 1.5 microm have allowed generation of pulses as short as 163 fs. The results show that totally integrated femtosecond fiber laser sources can be realized throughout the visible and near-infrared and point to the possibility of megawatt peak and tens of watt average in-fiber power levels.