Supercontinuum generation in ultra-flat near zero dispersion PCF with selective liquid infiltration

We present a new design study of ultra-flat near zero dispersion PCF with selectively liquid infiltration with all uniform air-holes in the cladding. The dependence of the individual parameters upon dispersion has been presented in detail. The study establishes that varying Λ influences the total dispersion, whereas d has the desired effect of modifying the dispersion slope, and varying n_L modifies both. With the above study we could achieve near zero ultra-flat dispersion as small as 0 ± 0.41 ps/nm/km for broad wavelength range of 452 nm. The optimized near zero ultra-flat dispersion PCF has been targeted for smooth and flat broadband spectrum supercontinuum generation (SCG) for near Infrared (IR) applications. Broadband SC generations corresponding to three different designs of ultra-flat dispersion fiber have been carried out by using picoseconds pulse laser around the first zero dispersion wavelengths (ZDW). The numerical results show that FWHM of around 400 nm with less than a meter long fiber can be achieved with these fibers that cover most of the communication wavelength bands. The proposed design study will be applicable for applications in the field of tomography, Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) system, spectroscopy, etc.     

Supercontinuum generation in square photonic crystal fiber with nearly zero ultra-flattened chromatic dispersion and fabrication tolerance analysis

This paper presents a simple index-guiding square photonic crystal fiber (SPCF) where the core is surrounded by air holes with two different diameters. The proposed design is simulated through an efficient full-vector modal solver based on the finite difference method with anisotropic perfectly matched layers absorbing boundary condition. The nearly zero ultra-flattened dispersion SPCF with low confinement loss, small effective area as well as broadband supercontinuum (SC) spectra is targeted. Numerical results show that the designed SPCF has been achieved at a nearly zero ultra-flattened dispersion of 0 ± 0.25 ps/(nm·km) in a wavelength range of 1.38 μm to 1.89 μm (510 nm band) which covers E, S, C, L and U communication bands, a low confinement loss of less than 10⁻⁷ dB/m in a wavelength range of 1.3 μm to 2.0 μm and a wide SC spectrum (FWHM = 450 nm) by using picosecond pulses at a center wavelength of 1.55 μm. We then analyze the sensitivity of chromatic dispersion to small variations from the optimum value of specific structural parameters. The proposed index-guiding SPCF can be applicable in supercontinuum generation (SCG) covering such diverse fields as spectroscopy applications and telecommunication dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) sources.     

Polarization and dispersion properties of elliptical hole golden spiral photonic crystal fiber

An elliptical air-hole golden spiral photonic crystal fiber (EGS-PCF) is analyzed with the full-vectorial finite element method. The air-holes in the EGS-PCF are arranged in a spiral pattern governed by the Golden Ratio, where the design has been inspired by the optimal arrangement of seeds found in nature. The EGS-PCF exhibits extremely high birefringence (～0.022 at operating wavelength 1550 nm) which is particularly useful for generating a polarization stable supercontinuum (SC). The fiber can also be designed to have a Zero Dispersion Wavelength (ZDW) at a suitable wavelength for only one polarization and large negative dispersion for the other, leading to a single-polarization SC. In addition, the fiber dispersion can be designed to obtain ZDWs at 800 nm and 1064 nm simultaneously, which can facilitate broadband supercontinuum generation (SCG) through multi-wavelength pumping.     

Experimental investigation of supercontinuum generation in highly nonlinear dispersion-shifted fiber pumped by spectrum-sliced amplified spontaneous emission

Spectral broadening of spectrum-sliced amplified spontaneous emission (SS-ASE) in highly nonlinear, dispersion-shifted fiber in different dispersion regimes is investigated experimentally. We find that, the spectral noise of the amplified SS-ASE pump from Er³⁺-doped fiber amplifier seeds the spectral broadening via four-wave mixing or modulation instability. Stimulated Raman scattering, red-shifted Raman solitons, and blue-shifted dispersion waves all enhance the broadening of the spectrum. The effect of the polarization state of pump on supercontinuum generation is also investigated, and it is found that, linear polarization is more efficient than random polarization for pumping supercontinuum. Supercontinuum with −10 dB bandwidth of 200 nm is generated by launching linearly polarized pump with 33.5 dB m power into anomalous dispersion regime near to zero dispersion wavelength of fiber.     

Dispersion characteristic of hexagonal and square lattice chalcogenide As2Se3 glass photonic crystal fiber

In this paper, we report a chalcogenide As₂Se₃ glass photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for dispersion compensating application. We have used the improved fully vectorial effective index method (IFVEIM) for comparing the dispersion properties (negative and zero dispersion) and effective area in hexagonal and square lattice of As₂Se₃ glass PCF using different wavelength windows. It has been demonstrated that due to their negative dispersion parameter and negative dispersion slope in wavelength range 1.2-2.5 μm, both lattice structures of As₂Se₃ glass PCFs, with pitch (Λ = 2 μm), can be used as dispersion compensating fibers. Further, design parameters have been obtained to achieve zero dispersion in these fibers. It is also shown that As₂Se₃ glass PCF provides much higher negative dispersion compared to silica PCF of the same structure, in wavelength range 1.25-1.6 μm and hence such PCF have high potential to be used as a dispersion compensating fiber in optical communication systems.     

Gaussian soliton generation using a 1.3 μm optical pulse in a micro-ring resonator for a new DWDM enhancement

We present a novel system of a Gaussian soliton generation using a 1.30 μm optical pulse in a nonlinear micro-ring resonator system, which can be used to form the soliton pulse trains within the new wavelength band. By using the suitable parameters, the soliton pulse trains with the center wavelength at 1.30 μm can be generated after the intense Gaussian pulse is input into the nonlinear micro-ring resonator system. The initial pulse bandwidth is enlarged and the signal amplified by the nonlinear Kerr effects type within the ring resonator. The simulation values are used associating with the practical device parameters, whereas the obtained results have shown that the wavelength enhancement of the center wavelength can be achieved. Furthermore, the maximum soliton output power of 12 W is obtained, which is available to perform the long-distance communication link. The common problem of soliton dispersion is minimized by the zero dispersion condition in this case. The major advantage of the proposed system is that the dense wavelength division of the center wavelength with the spectral width of 7.0 pm (10⁻¹⁵ m) and the free spectrum range of 400 pm can be generated and achieved. This is available for the used/installed wavelength enhancement, which can provide more available channel capacity in the existed public optical network.     

A novel scheme of hyperbolic-end microlens using the arc technology

This study proposes a new scheme of the tapered hyperbolic-end fiber (THEF) by etching the fiber end in a hydrofluoride (HF) solution with a thin layer of oil floating on top of the HF. This study makes it possible to fabricate the hyperbolic microlenses using unique etching and fusion techniques. Compared with previous hemispherical microlenses, the study shows that a THEF with a smaller taper angle and longer taper length fabricated by lower oil density exhibits a smaller radius of curvature, thus resulting in a better coupling efficiency. The THEF microlens results in a more than 2 dB improvement in coupling efficiency when compared with the currently available hemispherical microlenses. The calculation of the effect of oil density in HF etching solution on taper angle and taper length based on an empirical model is in agreement with the measured results. The THEFs have demonstrated up to 86% coupling efficiency for a laser with an aspect ratio of 1:1.5 at a wavelength of 1550 nm.     

飞秒泵浦不同锥长微结构光纤超连续谱的产生

对飞秒脉冲泵浦下,不同锥长及锥腰直径的微结构光纤的超连续谱产生进行了实验研究。采用“快速低温拉锥方法”,在保持d/Λ不变的情况下,对实验室自制的空气孔间距Λ=6.53 μm,归一化孔径d/Λ=0.79的微结构光纤进行了拉锥,分别得到6,8,10 mm等不同锥长微结构光纤。理论计算表明,随着锥长变长,锥腰直径变小,锥腰处零色散波长向短波移动：未拉锥及6,8和10 mm锥微结构光纤锥腰处零色散波长分别为1 129,885,806和637 nm。利用中心波长为810 nm,重复频率76 MHz,脉宽120 fs的钛蓝宝石飞秒激光器对拉锥后微结构光纤进行了实验研究：锥长为6 mm时,泵浦光中心波长位于整根光纤的正常色散区,锥腰的零色散点附近,内脉冲拉曼散射和级联四波混频是光谱初始展宽的主要因素。泵浦功率达到450 mW时,在可见波段390～461 nm及红外波段1 134～1 512 nm形成-5 dB的平坦宽带连续光谱。泵浦功率达到500 mW时,出现366～2 450 nm覆盖紫外、可见、近红外、中红外的超连续谱,其光谱红蓝移边缘已经接近实验用微结构光纤的传输带宽。锥长为8 mm、泵浦功率为450 mW时,在群速度匹配和群加速度失配的共同影响下,连续谱蓝移边缘达到366 nm,比6 mm锥时蓝移9 nm;锥长为10 mm时,由于锥腰处零色散点移动到可见光区域,可见区光谱仍能满足相位匹配条件。通过级联四波混频效应,在可见区域实现了频率上转换及光谱蓝移。泵浦光功率达到500 mW时,在382～412 nm得到谱宽仅为30 nm,转换效率达到27.7%的频率上转换。     

Widely tunable femtosecond fiber optical parametric oscillator

The phase-matching condition in a fiber is discussed. A balance among the different orders of fiber dispersion can be found to achieve a widely tuning modulation instability gain for pumping around the normal dispersion regime. Three coupled nonlinear wave equations are used to simulate the femtosecond fiber optical parametric oscillator. The numerical results show that, through appropriate choice of dispersion, femtosecond pulses with a 180-nm tunable range can be generated when pump wavelength near a fiber’s zero-dispersion wavelength is tuned only 7 nm. Further tuning is limited by the walk-off between the pump and the signal pulses.     

A broadband ultra flattened chromatic dispersion microstructured fiber for optical communications

A double-cladding microstructured fiber (MF) is proposed in this paper. The inner cladding of this optical fiber is composed of elliptical air holes and silica. The dependence of dispersion on the diameter of the air holes, the pitch, and the axes of the elliptical holes is investigated numerically. The proposed fiber possesses an ultra flattened dispersion curve over a wide wavelength range, and its dispersion value is small. The effective mode area is approaching to 60 μm², and the confinement loss is as low as <0.025 dB/km at 1550 nm. While choosing suitable structure parameters, an ultra dispersion-flattened MF within a broadband from1000 nm to 1900 nm can be achieved. The dispersion fluctuation is 0.6-1.0 ps/(nm·km) in all S, C and L band.     

Polarization maintaining holey fibers for residual dispersion compensation over S + C + L wavelength bands

We report on a highly birefringent holey fiber for broadband dispersion compensation covering the S, C, and L telecommunication bands i.e. wavelength ranging from 1460 to 1625 nm. The finite element method with circular perfectly matched layer boundary condition is used to investigate the guiding properties. Numerical analysis demonstrates that it is possible to obtain negative dispersion coefficient of about −470 to −850 ps/nm/km over S to L-bands and a relative dispersion slope perfectly matched with single mode fiber (SMF) of about 0.0036 nm⁻¹ at 1550 nm. At the same time birefringence of the order 2.53 × 10⁻² is realized at 1550 nm wavelength. Owing to superior optical properties of the proposed holey fiber, this can be a promising candidate for broadband dispersion compensation and sensing applications.     

Numerical investigation on broadband mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in chalcogenide suspended-core fibers

As_2S_3 and As_2Se_3 chalcogenide 3-bridges suspended-core fibers(SCFs) are designed with shifted zero-dispersion wavelengths(ZDWs) at around 1.5 μm, 2 μm, and 2.8 μm, respectively. A generalized nonlinear Schr ¨odinger equation is used to numerically compare supercontinuum(SC) generation in these SCFs pumped at an anomalous dispersion region nearby their ZDWs. Evolutions of the long-wavelength edge(LWE), the power proportion in the long-wavelength region(PPL), and spectral flatness(SF) are calculated and analyzed. Meanwhile, the optimal pump parameters and fiber length are given with LWE, PPL, and SF taken into account. For As_2S_3 SCFs, SC from a 14 mm-long fiber with a ZDW of 2825 nm pumped at 2870 nm can achieve the longest LWE of ～ 13 μm and PPL up to ～72%. For As_2Se_3 SCFs, the LWE of 15.5 μm and the highest PPL of ～ 87% can be achieved in a 10 mm-long fiber with ZDW of 1982 nm pumped at 2000 nm. Although the As_2Se_3 SCFs can achieve much longer LWE than the As_2S_3 SCFs, the core diameter of As_2Se_3 SCFs will be much smaller to obtain a similar ZDW, leading to lower damage threshold and output power. Finally, the optimal parameters for generating SC spanning over different mid-IR windows are given.     

Microstructure holey fibers as wideband dispersion compensating media for high speed transmission system

This paper presents a dispersion compensating microstructure holey fiber for wideband transmission system. The finite element method with perfectly matched absorbing layers boundary condition is used to investigate the guiding properties. According to simulation, negative dispersion coefficient of −1455 ps/(nm km) and a relative dispersion slope (RDS) close to that of single mode fiber of about 0.0036 nm⁻¹ is obtained at 1.55 μm. The variation of structural parameters is also studied to evaluate the tolerance of the fabrication. The proposed module can be used in 40 Gb/s dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems in optical fiber communication networks.     

Highly nonlinear photonic-crystal fibers for the spectral transformation of Cr: forsterite laser pulses

We demonstrate novel photonic-crystal fibers (PCFs) fabricated of a highly nonlinear glass. Dispersion profiles and nonlinearity of these fibers are tailored with an array of submicron holes in the fiber core. With the PCF structure designed to provide a nonlinearity on the order of 10³ W⁻¹ km⁻¹ at the radiation wavelength of 1 μm and a fundamental-mode dispersion profile with zero group-velocity dispersion around 1.19 μm, unamplified femtosecond Cr: forsterite laser pulses are efficiently frequency-converted into the 540-1000-nm wavelength range through solitonic spectral-transformation mechanisms and four-wave mixing.     

Design and characterization of single mode circular photonic crystal fiber for broadband dispersion compensation

In this paper, we present a single mode circular photonic crystal fiber (C-PCF) for broadband dispersion compensation covering 1400 to 1610 nm wavelength band over the telecommunication windows. Investigations of guiding properties are carried out using finite element method (FEM) with circular perfectly matched layer boundary condition. Numerical study reveals that a negative dispersion coefficient of about −386.57 to −971.44 ps/(nm km) is possible to obtain over the wavelength ranging from 1400 to 1610 nm with a relative dispersion slope (RDS) of about 0.0036 nm⁻¹ at 1550 nm wavelength. In addition, the single mode behaviour of C-PCF is demonstrated by employing V parameter. According to simulation, it is found that the proposed C-PCF acts as a single mode fiber within 1340 to 1640 nm wavelength. Moreover, effective dispersion, relative dispersion slope, birefringence and confinement loss are also presented and discussed.     

Supercontinuum manipulation based on the influence of chirp on soliton spectral tunneling

The soliton spectral tunneling(SST) effect, as a soliton spectral switching phenomenon, enables a soliton to tunnel through a spectrally limited regime of normal dispersion in the fiber with multiple zero dispersion wavelengths(ZDWs).Since initial chirp can affect the behavior of pulse evolution, we numerically study the influence of chirp on the SST in the process of supercontinuum(SC) occurring in a photonic crystal fiber(PCF) with three ZDWs. The linear chirp is imposed by a phase modulation of input pulse while maintaining a constant pulse duration. Interestingly, it is found that the spectral range and flatness can be flexibly tuned by adjusting the initial chirp value. More specifically, positive chirp facilitates soliton self-frequency shifting(SSFS), making the soliton quickly transfer from one anomalous dispersion regime to another accompanied by the generation of dispersive waves(DWs). In this case, the SST effect further expands the spectral range by enhancing both the red-shift of the fundamental soliton and the blue-shift of DWs, thus generating a broader SC. However, negative chirp suppresses the SST effect, resulting in a smoother SC at the expense of bandwidth.Therefore, the findings in this work provide interesting results relating to the influence of initial chirp on the SST to generate a considerably smoother and broader SC, which is extremely useful in many applications, such as wavelength conversion and SC generation.     

Numerical investigation and optimization of a photonic crystal fiber for simultaneous dispersion compensation over S + C + L wavelength bands

In this paper, we numerically investigate and optimize the profile of a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) that can eliminate the residual dispersion from the telecom link as well as can provide identical dispersion compensation over S + C + L bands. A full-vectorial finite element method combined with genetic algorithm is used to optimize the fiber’s profile as well as to accurately determine its modal properties. The optimized PCF exhibits a dispersion of −98.3 ps/nm/km with a variance of ±0.55 ps/nm/km from 1.48 μm to 1.63 μm (i.e., over 150 nm bandwidth) and a zero dispersion slope. Macro-bending loss performance of the designed PCF is also studied and it is found that the fiber shows low bending losses for the smallest feasible bending radius of 5 mm. Further, sensitivity analysis has been carried out for the proposed fiber design and it has been found that a ±2% change in the fiber parameters may lead to a ±8% shift of the dispersion from its nominal value.     

Design of single polarization single mode dispersion compensating photonic crystal fiber

In this paper, we present a photonic crystal fiber based on hexagonal structure for improved negative dispersion as well as high birefringence in the telecom wavelength bands. It is demonstrated that it is possible to obtain negative dispersion coefficient of −712 ps/(nm km) and relative dispersion slope (RDS) perfectly match to that of single mode fiber (SMF) of about 0.0036 nm⁻¹ at the operating wavelength 1550 nm. The proposed fiber exhibits high birefringence of the order 2.11 × 10⁻² with nonlinear coefficient about 57.57 W⁻¹ km⁻¹ at 1550 nm. Moreover, it is confirmed that the designed fiber successfully operates as a single mode in the entire band of interest.     

Highly birefrigent photonic crystal fiber with high negative dispersion for broadband dispersion compensation

In this paper, we proposed a dual-enhanced core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with high birefringence and ultra-high negative dispersion for dispersion compensation in a polarization maintained optical system. Using finite difference time domain (FDTD) method, we presented dispersion compensating PCF (DC-PCF) with negative dispersion between −1650 ps nm⁻¹ km⁻¹ and −2305 ps nm⁻¹ km⁻¹ in C-band and particularly −2108 ps nm⁻¹ km⁻¹ in λ = 1.55 μm wavelength. By this method, we can compensate dispersion in 124 km long span of a conventional single mode fiber (SMF) by 1 km-long of the DC-PCF at λ = 1.55 μm wavelength. Moreover, fundamental mode of the proposed PCF can induce birefringence about 3.5 × 10⁻³ at 1.55 μm wavelength.     

Dispersion-ultra-flattened square-lattice photonic crystal fiber with small effective mode area and low confinement loss

Proposed in this paper is a simple square-lattice photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with nearly zero flattened dispersion (NZFD) over a wide wavelength span. We make a trade-off between the coupling efficiency and the effective mode area in order to obtain relatively low confinement loss and high nonlinearity. Via full-vector finite element method with hybrid edge/node elements, over 1137–1710 nm, the dispersion coefficient is 0.3 ± 0.3 ps/(km nm), the confinement loss is relatively low, in level of 10⁻⁷–10⁻⁴ dB/km and the effective mode area remains 5.88–6.59 μm².