Non-linear applications of microstructured optical fibres

The enhancement of different non-linear processes in microstructured optical fibres can be achieved through manipulation of the dispersion characteristics of the fibre. This is demonstrated by extending the region of short wavelength operation of high power supercontinuum generation through four wave mixing in a cascaded fibre geometry where the dispersion of each fibre decreased on propagation. The technique is further refined in a demonstration utilizing long lengths of dispersion decreasing tapered microstructured fibres, where the supercontinuum extends to around 300 nm with spectral power densities in excess of 2 mW/nm in the uv. These long length tapers can also be utilized for adiabatic soliton pulse compression in new spectral regions, allowing the compression of 655 fs pulses to 45 fs.