Patent ID: 8102594

Claim:
A method for pre-compensation of self phase modulation in fiber-based amplifiers in order to achieve amplified pulses with larger power, the method comprising the step of: receiving, at a detector system, at least a portion of an optical signal; providing, from said detector system, a signal proportional to optical intensity of said at least a portion of said optical signal as a modulating signal for a phase modulator; imparting phase, with said phase modulator, on said optical signal, before amplification by a fiber-based amplifier, the imparted phase being sufficient to substantially compensate for self phase modulation in the fiber-based amplifier; and pre-compensating self phase modulation by providing said optical signal as an input to the fiber-based amplifier in order to achieve amplified pulses with larger power; larger power being power that results in more than 1 radian of nonlinear phase shift before compensation of self phase modulation.