Patent ID: 8284808

Claim:
A device for generating light pulses, comprising: a seed laser source for generating input light pulses; a tuning element, which receives the input light pulses from the seed laser source and which tunably adjusts the energy of the received light pulses; and an optical power amplifier which receives the light pulses from the tuning element and which amplifies and compresses the received light pulses, wherein the optical power amplifier compresses the light pulses by soliton effect compression in such a manner that the pulse duration of the output light pulses of the optical power amplifier is tunable via adjusting the energy of the light pulses by means of the tuning element, a highly non linear optical fiber, wherein the output light pulses of the optical power amplifier are fed into the highly non-linear optical fiber; wherein said tuning element is configured to adjust the power level of the light pulses at the input of the optical power amplifier, wherein the power level of the light pulses at the output of the optical power amplifier is practically independent from the power level of the light pulses at the input of the optical power amplifier, and wherein said tuning element is configured to vary the wavelength of the light pulses at the output of the highly non-linear optical fiber by adjusting the energy of the light pulses.