Adaptive control methods for ultrafast pulse propagation in optical fibers

Adaptive control in combination with ultrafast pulse shaping provides a compelling approach to harness events that occur on the fastest timescale available. This paper illustrates the application of adaptive pulse shaping to femtosecond pulse propagation at /spl lambda/=1550 nm in single-mode optical fibers. The approach is illustrated first by through a numerical simulation of the technique. An experimental demonstration is described. The propagation of /spl sim/200-fs pulses is successfully achieved in the nonlinear regime by suitably preshaping the input pulse using an adaptive feedback loop.