Enhanced pulse compression within sign-alternating dispersion waveguides

Abstract

We show theoretically and numerically how to optimize sign-alternating dispersion waveguides for maximum nonlinear pulse compression, while leveraging the substantial increase in bandwidth-to-input peak power advantage of these structures. We find that the spectral phase can converge to a parabolic profile independent of uncompensated higher-order dispersion. The combination of an easy to compress phase spectrum, with low input power requirements, then makes sign-alternating dispersion a scheme for high-quality nonlinear pulse compression that does not require high powered lasers, which is beneficial for instance in integrated photonic circuits. We also show a new nonlinear compression regime and soliton shaping dynamic only seen in sign-alternating dispersion waveguides. Through an example SiN-based integrated waveguide, we show that the dynamic enables the attainment of compression to two optical cycles at a pulse energy of 100 pJ which surpasses the compression achieved using similar parameters for a current state-of-the-art SiN system.