Optical pulse compression using cascaded quadratic nonlinearities in periodically poled lithium niobate

Efficient pulse compression was achieved by the use of cascaded quadratic nonlinearities in 10-mm-long periodically poled MgO-doped lithium niobate. An off-diagonal component of the nonlinear coefficient was utilized for group-velocity matched cascaded interactions at the fundamental wavelength of 1560 nm. Simultaneously compressed fundamental and second-harmonic pulses of ∼35 fs duration were obtained from the 110-fs-pump pulses.