Complete dispersion compensation for 400-fs pulse transmission over 10-km fiber link using dispersion compensating fiber and spectral phase equalizer

We have demonstrated essentially complete dispersion compensation for 400-fs pulses over a 10-km fiber link using dispersion compensating fiber and a programmable femtosecond pulse shaper functioning as a spectral phase equalizer. The pulse shaper impresses adjustable quadratic and cubic phases onto the spectrum and removes all the residual dispersion and dispersion slope in the dispersion compensated fiber link. Our work shows that the pulse shaper technique provides a powerful and convenient tool for programmable fiber dispersion compensation over broad optical bandwidth. This allows distortion-free femtosecond pulse transmission over a fiber link in excess of 10 km without requiring the exact trimming of the dispersion-compensating fiber.