Pulse trapping by ultrashort soliton pulses in optical fibers across zero-dispersion wavelength

A new phenomenon of pulse trapping by the ultrashort soliton pulse of an optical fiber has been experimentally observed. The trapped pulse in the normal-dispersion region copropagates with the soliton pulse in the anomalous-dispersion region along the fiber, and the wavelength of the trapped pulse is shifted to satisfy the condition of group-velocity matching. The wavelengths of the soliton pulse and the trapped pulse change almost continuously as the power of the soliton pulse is varied. Almost perfect conversion efficiencies are observed for soliton self-frequency shift and pulse trapping. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.