Synthesis of optical pulses by use of similaritons.

We propose and demonstrate experimentally a novel method for synthesizing chirp-free pulses of any desired temporal shape by means of chirp compensation and spectral filtering of optical Raman similaritons. The synthesized pulse shape is independent of the waveform, wavelength and energy of the initial pulses that are used for the similariton generation. Pulses are fully characterized by means of different techniques including cross-correlation and spectrum measurements, and the PICASO technique.