Using GRENOUILLE to characterize asymmetric femtosecond pulses undergoing self- and cross-phase modulation in a polarization-maintaining optical fiber

Self- and Cross-phase modulation of asymmetric femtosecond pulses (similar to 810 nm) propagating through a birefringent single-mode optical fiber (similar to 6.9 cm) is studied both experimentally (using GRENOUILLE) and numerically ( by solving a set of coupled nonlinear Schrodinger equations or CNLSEs). An optical spectrogram representation is derived from the electric field of the pulses and is linearly juxtaposed with the corresponding optical spectrum and optical time-trace. The simulations are shown to be in good qualitative agreement with the experiments. Measured input pulse asymmetry, when incorporated into the simulations, is found to be the dominant cause of output spectral asymmetry. The results indicate that it is possible to modulate short pulses both temporally and spectrally by passage through polarization maintaining optical fibers with specified orientation and length. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.