双零色散光子晶体光纤中超连续谱的产生及控制

 通过数值模拟飞秒脉冲在具有双零色散波长的光子晶体光纤中的传输过程,详细分析了超连续谱的产生和控制机制.结果表明：中心波长处于反常色散区的泵浦脉冲在高阶非线性和高阶色散等作用的调制下,将演化为基孤子和正常色散区的两个色散波|该色散波进而经与之相位匹配的基孤子相干加强而使频谱展宽形成超连续谱,同时两个色散波上出现了干涉引起的振荡现象.进一步对比三种结构的光子晶体光纤中超连续谱的特点,定量分析了两色散波对超连续谱的限制作用,阐述了结构参量对超连续谱的影响.基于上述结论,结合对色散波的中心波长与光子晶体光纤的色散曲线、结构参量之间关系的分析,提出了设计光子晶体光纤的结构来控制超连续谱的方法.作为例证,通过优化光子晶体光纤结构理论上实现了频谱分量覆盖可见光区的平坦超连续谱.     

飞秒脉冲在熔石英玻璃中超连续谱产生的研究

从非线性薛定谔方程出发,利用分步傅里叶方法,研究了时空耦合飞秒脉冲在熔石英玻璃中传输时,传输距离、入射激光脉冲峰值功率、衍射、色散和非线性等因素对超连续谱产生的影响。结果表明,飞秒脉冲在熔石英玻璃中传输时,超连续谱的产生主要分为两阶段：由材料的自聚焦等三阶非线性效应引起的脉冲压缩阶段及由自相位调制和材料群速度色散引起脉冲分裂阶段。当高峰值功率的飞秒脉冲在熔石英玻璃中传输时,材料的三阶非线性效应抑制衍射效应,引起脉冲压缩,从而产生子脉冲,由此引入新的频率成分。同时,还研究了同一脉冲不同横向空间位置处的超连续谱的变化规律,在中心频率两侧均有新频率产生。最后,通过实验证实了超连续谱的产生。     

Wavelength division multiplexed confocal microscopy using supercontinuum

We investigate both theoretically and experimentally wavelength division multiplexed confocal imaging by using white light supercontinuum. We show that with the optimized pinhole diameter an axial resolution of 0.75 μm and detection efficiency of 80% can be achieved. In addition, we applied the axial WDM confocal system to 3D surface measurement and the result agreed well with that measured by commercially available surface profilometer. The measured sensitivity of the system is 3.25 nm. Finally, we demonstrated lateral confocal imaging by using supercontinuum. An effective lateral scanning range of 130 μm was obtained.     

Octave-spanning spectrum generation in Ti:sapphire oscillator

A Ti:sapphire oscillator emitting an octave-spanning spectrum that ranges from 460 to 1000 nm is demonstrated. To our knowledge, it is the first time that a supercontinuum as a whole measured after the output coupler extending beyond 500 nm in the blue end is generated from a femtosecond Ti:sapphire oscillator. In the Ti:sapphire oscillator operating in self-Q-switched and self-mode locked mode, two chirped mirrors and a prism pair were used for dispersion compensation. These experimental results would open a new option for the construction of simple continuum sources.     

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.     

Infrared supercontinuum from a large mode area PCF under extreme picosecond excitation

Evolution of the long-wavelength edge of supercontinuum (SC) in a large mode-area photonic crystal fiber (LMA PCF) under extreme (close to the fiber damage threshold) picosecond excitation is analyzed for the first time to our knowledge. The obtained results are interpreted on the basis of the numerical simulations explaining both spectral and temporal characteristics of SC in dependence on the pulse power and the fiber length. An existence of the minimum LMA PCF length providing the broadest spectrum under the highest picosecond excitations is predicted. The multimode cross-modulation inside the LMA PCF is analyzed, as well.      

Ultra-broadband supercontinuum generation with a nonlinear chirped pulse for controlling quantum path

We theoretically investigate the high-order harmonic generation in helium atom driven by a nonlinear chirped laser pulse with few-cycle duration. By employing appropriate chirp to the driving pulse, an efficient electric field waveform of controlling quantum path for ultra-broadband supercontinuous harmonics is realized, and then an isolated sub-50 as pulse with bandwidth of 739 eV can be significantly obtained.     

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.