TUNABLE SOURCE OF PICOSECOND PULSES AROUND 1550 NM FOR ALL-OPTICAL PROCESSING

We have developed a tunable source of picosecond pulses around 1545 nm , with peak powers of 250 W. Stable soliton pulses from a laser, based on a non-linear amplifying loop mirror used in conjunction with a sem iconductor multiple quantum well saturable absorber, are compressed in dispersion decreasing fibre, followed by spectral filtering and ampli fication. The potential tuning range of the pulses is over 50 nm from 1535-1590 nm. We have demonstrated the usefulness of this system as a source for non-linear optical effects, observing efficient second harm onic generation in periodically poled lithium niobate with a conversio n efficiency of 7%.