Compression of periodic optical pulses using temporal fractional Talbot effect

Recently, a novel method for compression of periodic optical pulses based on a superposition of replicated and time-delayed original pulse trains was proposed. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate that the phase shift of these replicas, as occurs in the temporal fractional Talbot effect, leads to compression without repetition-rate multiplication, which is inherent in the previous method. Simple and compact devices based on fiber Bragg gratings or fiber/or waveguide splitters/combiners, used for implementation of the present method can be considered as an equivalent of dispersive delay lines for periodic optical pulses. The proposed devices will also be available, for instance, for pulse generation, pulse-chirp compensation, temporal imaging, and real-time spectrum analysis for periodic optical pulses.