The laser set-up is shown in Figure 1. Specially designed pairs of double-chirped mirrors [1] compensate for higher-order as well as second-order dispersion, and CaF2 prisms permit dispersion adjustment. A 2.7-mm-thick Ti:sapphire crystal is pumped with about 4 W of cw 532 nm power. After modelocked operation is initiated by translating the prism P1, a steady state output power of about 120 mW ...

Polarization dependence of various fiber effects affecting signal quality in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems has become a major field of research activities. Polarization– mode dispersion (PMD) and polarization–dependent loss (PDL) are quite well understood today, but there are still major open questions with respect to the interaction with nonlinear fiber effects, although the p...

We investigate how suppressed modes in frequency combs are modified upon frequency doubling and self-phase modulation. We find, both experimentally and by using a simplified model, that these side-modes are amplified relative to the principal comb modes. Whereas frequency doubling increases their relative strength by 6 dB, the growth due to self-phase modulation can be much stronger and general...