Patent ID: 8170386

Claim:
An optical pulse generating apparatus for outputting an ultrashort pulse, the apparatus comprising: an optical pulse source; and an optical pulse compressor that compresses an input pulse from the optical source, comprising: a chirp unit comprising a normal dispersion fiber that provides a positive chirp to the input pulse, and a dispersion compensator comprising an anomalous fiber that compensates for the positive chirp provided to the input pulse from the chirp unit, wherein a nonlinear coefficient and an absolute value of a second-order group-velocity dispersion of the anomalous fiber of the dispersion compensator is set such that a soliton order becomes one or more, and a fiber length of the anomalous fiber is equal to or smaller than a length required for optical soliton formation, and wherein a nonlinear coefficient of the dispersion compensator is 0.5 W −1 cm −1 or less.