Observation of spectral self-imaging by nonlinear parabolic cross-phase modulation

We report an experimental demonstration of spectral self-imaging on a periodic frequency comb induced by a nonlinear all-optical process, i.e., parabolic cross-phase modulation in a highly nonlinear fiber. The comb free spectral range is reconfigured by simply tuning the temporal period of the pump parabolic pulse train. In particular, undistorted FSR divisions by factors of 2 and 3 are successfully performed on a 10 GHz frequency comb, realizing new frequency combs with an FSR of 5 and 3.3 GHz, respectively. The pump power requirement associated to the SSI phenomena is also shown to be significantly relaxed by the use of dark parabolic pulses.