Spectral broadening and compression to few-cycle pulse widths in the regime of soliton-self-frequency shift

Soliton-self-frequency shift in fibers with a precisely controlled dispersion is shown to enable efficient spectral broadening and temporal compression of light fields to few-cycle pulse widths. Anomalously dispersive fibers with positive third-order dispersion can transform nano- and subnanojoule 100-200 fs laser pulses into smoothly wavelength-tunable and spectrally broadened solitons with a pulse width as short as two to five field cycles. This regime of soliton pulse transformation is ideally suited for the creation of compact frequency-tunable fiber sources as well as for ultrabroadband optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification with an optical synchronization between the pump and seed fields.