Generation of 290 fs laser pulses by self-seeding and soliton compression

Self-seeding with subsequent chirp compensation presents a simple way to ge nerate pulses of a few picoseconds width tunable over more than 30 nm. Furt her compression of the laser pulses exploiting nonlinear effects in optical fibers (soliton compression) allows the generation of laser pulses with a full width at half maximum of less than 300 fs. Application of these pulses in an electro-optical sampling system is demonstrated. (C) 1999 American I nstitute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)04543-X].