Coherent ultrashort pulse generation from incoherent light by pulse trapping in birefringent fibers

We investigated the nonlinear fiber phenomena of pulse trapping and amplification between incoherent light and an ultrashort soliton pulse in birefringent fibers both experimentally and numerically. Using the phenomena in a 1.4 km-long low-birefringence fiber, a coherent, nearly transform-limited, sech2-shaped, ultrashort pulse was generated from incoherent light from a super-luminescent diode. The average pulse energy and pulse width were 121 pJ and 640 fs, respectively. The estimated gain of this system was as large as 62 dB.