Generation of 20-fs optical pulses from a gain-switched laser diode by a four-stage soliton compression technique

7.5-ps optical pulses generated from a gain-switched semiconductor laser at 2 GHz are successfully compressed down to 20 fs using a four-stage fiber soliton pulse compressor consisting of standard single-mode transmission, Er-doped, dispersion-decreasing, and dispersion-flattened fibers, respectively. We have experimentally confirmed that the soliton self-frequency shift plays an important role in obtaining such high compression in very short fibers, and also in minimizing the inherent undesirable pedestal component.