Large nonlinear phase shifts were generated with femtosecond pulses at 1560 mn through cascaded quadratic interactions in periodically poled MgO-doped LiNbO3. The off-diagonal component of the nonlinear coefficient was utilized for simultaneous quasi phase matching and group-velocity matching. The effective nonlinear refractive index was varied from -2.9 x 10(-14) to +3.3 x 10(-14) cm(2)/W by tuning the phase-mismatch conditions. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.