光子晶体光纤中超连续谱的研究进展与应用

利用光子晶体光纤(photonic crystal fiber,PCF)产生超连续光谱是目前光通信光电子器件领域的一个研究热点,文章系统地介绍了石英光子晶体光纤和非石英软玻璃光子晶体光纤中产生超连续谱的理论和实验研究成果.对于石英光子晶体光纤主要介绍了实芯光子晶体光纤、空芯填充光子晶体光纤和锥形光子晶体光纤产生超连续谱的研究成果,分类介绍了其超连续谱产生的特点.对于非石英光子晶体光纤主要介绍了某些铅硅酸盐玻璃和亚碲酸盐玻璃光子晶体光纤超连续谱产生的特点.最后介绍了超连续谱的应用和发展前景.     

光子晶体光纤超连续谱产生的实验研究

报道了利用掺钛蓝宝石飞秒激光器产生重复频率为80MHz,脉宽为10fs的超短激光脉冲在10cm长光子晶体光纤产生超连续谱的实验,获得展宽范围为450nm到1100nm的连续谱。实验中观察到孤子自频移和高阶孤子分裂现象,非孤子辐射与随后光谱向短波方向的拓展有密切关系。     

Chalcogenide photonic crystal fiber for ultraflat mid-infrared supercontinuum generation

In this Letter, we numerically simulate the generation of a 1–15 μm mid-infrared supercontinuum(SC) from a highly nonlinear Ge_(11.5)As24Se_(64.5)-based photonic crystal fiber(PCF). This ultra-broadband SC is achieved in a100 mm long PCF pumped using 85 fs laser pulses operated at 3.1 μm and a peak pulse power of 3 k W. The proposed design offers a flat dispersion profile with two zero dispersion wavelengths. This broad and flat dispersion profile of the Ge_(11.5)As24Se_(64.5)PCF, combined with the high nonlinearity(2474 W-1km-1), generates an ultra-broadband SC.     

Ultra broadband-flattened dispersion photonic crystal fiber for supercontinuum generation

We propose an improved design of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with ultra broadband-flattened dispersion and ultra-low confinement loss in the telecommunication window.The design is considerably suitable for the generation of wideband supercontinuum spectrum.Numerical results reveal that the proposed PCF structure possesses a low dispersion of 0±1.5 ps/(nm·km) in the wavelengths ranging from 1.134 to 1.805 μm (approximately 700-nm bandwidth) with a confinement loss of less than 10 8 dB/km.In addition,a nonlinear coefficient greater than 11.47 (W·km) 1 and a dispersion slope of as low as 0.005694 ps/(nm 2 ·km) are obtained at 1.55-μm wavelength.Moreover,a symmetric flat supercontinuum spectrum with a 10-dB bandwidth of 190 nm is achieved in a 3-m-long fiber,verifying the excellent optical features of the innovative PCF.     

Mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in soft-glass suspended core photonic crystal fiber

Supercontinuum from 800 to 2,600 nm has been obtained in a soft glass suspended-core photonic crystal fiber. The fiber has been fabricated using an in-house synthesized, lead-bismuth-galate oxide glass (PBG-08), which has a transmission window from 500 nm to 4,500 nm. Dispersion characteristic has been designed to enable efficient pumping in the anomalous regime, using typical telecommunication wavelengths and influence of discrepancy between design and physical dispersion profile of fiber is discussed. An optical parametric amplifier system seeded with a Ti:Sapphire oscillator has been used as a light source (70 fs pulses with 100 kHz repetition rate). Supercontinuum bandwidth on the mid-infrared side is limited by OH $^-$ absorption of the glass and presence of second zero-dispersion wavelength in the spectral area of interest. Flatness the spectrum remains under 7 dB from roughly 1,800 nm to about 2,500 nm.     

Optimization of supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fibers for pulse compression

A theoretical study of super generation in photonic crystal fiber and its application to pulse compression is presented. The evolution of the spectrum can be divided into three stages: initial broadening below a certain threshold propagation distance, dramatic broadening to a supercontinuum at a threshold distance, and, finally, saturation of the spectral width on propagation. It is found that the group delay and group-delay dispersion of the supercontinum are sensitive to the input pulse peak power after further propagation at the third stage. Fluctuations from the input pulse are amplified and translated into fluctuations and time shift of the compressed pulses. There exists an optimum compressed distance at which compressed pulses with negligible fluctuation and time shift can be obtained.     

Initial dynamics of supercontinuum generation in highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber

We present a theoretical and experimental analysis of supercontinuum generation in very short lengths of high-nonlinearity photonic crystal fibers. The Raman response function for Schott SF6 glass is presented for what is believed to be the first time and used for numerical modeling of pulse propagation. Simulation and experiments are in excellent agreement and demonstrate the rapid transition to regimes of spectral complexity due to higher-order nonlinear effects.     

White-light supercontinuum generation with 60-ps pump pulses in a photonic crystal fiber

The generation of a spatially single-mode white-light supercontinuum has been observed in a photonic crystal fiber pumped with 60-ps pulses of subkilowatt peak power. The spectral broadening is identified as being due to the combined action of stimulated Raman scattering and parametric four-wave-mixing generation, with a negligible contribution from the self-phase modulation of the pump pulses. The experimental results are in good agreement with detailed numerical simulations. These findings demonstrate that ultrafast femtosecond pulses are not needed for efficient supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fibers.     

20 W all fiber supercontinuum generation from picosecond MOPA pumped photonic crystal fiber

An all fiber high power supercontinuum (SC) source is demonstrated by pumping a section of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with a picosecond MOPA laser. The core of the PCF is enlarged at the input end through a serious of PCF post processing method to match the output fiber of the picosecond laser, to ensure low loss splicing, hence high power operation of the whole system. The supercontinuum output spectrum covers the wavelength range from 650 nm to beyond 1700 nm. Limited by available pump power, 20 W super-continuum output power is obtained under 29.5 W picosecond pump power, giving a high optical to optical conversion efficiency of 67.8%.     

Different supercontinuum generation processes in photonic crystal fibers pumped with a 1064-nm picosecond pulse

Picosecond pulse pumped supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber is investigated by performing a series of comparative experiments. The main purpose is to investigate the supercontinuum generation processes excited by a given pump source through the experimental study of some specific fibers. A 20-W all-fiber picosecond master oscillator-power amplifier （MOPA） laser is used to pump three different kinds of photonic crystal fibers for supercontinuum generation. Three diverse supercontinuum formation processes are observed to correspond to photonie crystal fibers with distinct dis- persion properties. The experimental results are consistent with the relevant theoretical results. Based on the above analyses, a watt-level broadband white light supercontinuum source spanning from 500 nm to beyond 1700 nm is demonstrated by using a picosecond fiber laser in combination with the matched photonic crystal fiber. The limitation of the group velocity matching curve of the photonic crystal fiber is also discussed in the paper.     

Soliton-induced supercontinuum generation in liquid-filled photonic crystal fibre

We aim to study the nonlinear optical phenomena with ultra-broadband radiation in photonic crystal fibre (PCF). While PCFs with cores made from different glasses are well studied in previous works, in this paper, it is planned to investigate the dynamics of nonlinear processes of supercontinuum generation (SCG) in liquid-filled PCF (LCPCF) to understand the physical phenomena of femtosecond pulse propagation, particularly, the temporal and spectral changes of the pulse propagating through specific PCFs. Since the CS₂-filled LCPCF has complex nonlinear phenomena, we intend to analyse the role of saturable nonlinear response and slow nonlinear response on SCG in detail. For the physical explanation, soliton fission and modulational instability techniques will be implemented to investigate the impact of slow nonlinear response and saturable nonlinear response respectively, in SCG process.     

All fiber supercontinuum light source using photonic crystal fibers pumped by nanosecond fiber laser pulses

A novel compact supercontinuum (SC) source using the single mode photonic crystal fibers (PCF) pumped with an all fiber MOPA fiber laser is demonstrated experimentally. A bandwidth of 700 nm is achieved by operating the pumping fiber laser at a wavelength of 1064 nm, pulse duration of 10 ns, repetition rate of 50 kHz and peak power of 1 kW. The SC generation is initiated through modulation instability (MI) which breakups the nanosecond pump pulses into picosecond or femtosecond pulses, and further broadened through nonlinear effects of PCF.     

High energy femtosecond supercontinuum light generation in large mode area photonic crystal fiber

A large mode area photonic crystal fiber (LMA PCF) with an effective area of 180 μm² is used to generate a high energy, micro-joule range, flat, octave spanning supercontinuum (SC) extending from ~ 600 nm to ~ 1720 nm. A train of femtosecond pulses from a widely-tunable parametric amplifier pumped by a Ti:Sapphire regenerative amplifier system are coupled into a 20 cm length of LMA PCF generating a SC of 1.4 μJ energy. We present an experimental study of the high energy SC as a function of the input power and the pumping wavelength. The spectrum obtained at a pump wavelength of 1260 nm presents spectral flatness variation less than 12 dB over more than 1.1 octave bandwidth. The physical processes behind the SC formation are described in the normal and the anomalous dispersion regions. Our experimental results are successfully compared with the numerical solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation.     

Time-resolved spectrophotometer for turbid media based on supercontinuum generation in a photonic crystal fiber

We describe an instrument for the time-resolved spectroscopy of turbid media that is based on supercontinuum generation in a photonic crystal fiber. The light injected into the sample consists of subpicosecond pulses that cover 550-1000 nm at 85 MHz at an average power of as much as 40 mW. A spectrometer coupled to a multianode photomultiplier tube is used to detect the light simultaneously in 16 wavelength channels, with a resolution of 5-20 nm/channel, depending on the grating. Time-correlated single-photon counting is used to produce time-dispersion curves, which one fits to the diffusion equation to determine absorption and reduced scattering coefficients. We tested the instrument by measuring the time-resolved diffuse reflectance of epoxy phantoms and by performing in vivo measurements on volunteers. The results were similar to those obtained with previous discrete wavelength systems, whereas the full spectrum (610-810 nm) acquisition time was as short as 1 s owing to the parallel acquisition.     

Octave-spanning supercontinuum generation of vortices in an As2S3 ring photonic crystal fiber

We propose As(2)S(3) ring photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for supercontinuum generation of optical vortex modes. Due to the large material index contrast between As(2)S(3) and air holes in the designed ring PCF, there is a two-orders-of-magnitude improvement of the difference between the effective refractive indices of different vortex modes compared with regular ring fiber. The design freedom of PCFs enables a low dispersion (<60 ps/nm/km variation in total) over a 522 nm optical bandwidth. Moreover, the vortex mode has a large nonlinear coefficient of 11.7/W/m at 1550 nm with a small confinement loss of <0.03 dB/m up to 2000 nm. An octave-spanning supercontinuum spectrum of the vortex mode is generated from 1196 to 2418 nm at -20 dB by launching a 120 fs pulse with a 60 W peak power at 1710 nm into a 1 cm long As(2)S(3) ring PCF.     

The influence of a weak signal seed-wave on picosecond supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber

We present a numerical study of the properties of picosecond supercontinuum (SC) generation when pumping in the normal dispersion region of photonic crystal fibers. Simulation results demonstrate that rogue wave generation can be reduced by adding a weak signal continuous-wave (CW) seed on the main pump pulse. Besides, the red-shifted part of SC exhibits higher degree of coherence and pulse-to-pulse intensity stability.     

Visible supercontinuum generation in tapered photonic crystal fiber pumped by picosecond pulse at 1064 nm

Short photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) with different tapered waist diameter are made to extend the continuum spectrum in the visible range. The diversification of output continuum spectrum with the diameter of the tapered waist is experimentally observed. An all fiber visible supercontinuum source with 1.88 W output is demonstrated in our experiments. To the best of our knowledge, it is the highest all fiber visible supercontinuum generation in tapered PCF, pumping by picosecond pulse at 1064 nm. The suitably designed short tapered PCF can extend the visible spectrum, while, how to preserve the tapered waist is crucial for the all fiber visible supercontinuum source in the practical applications.     

A theoretical investigation of soliton induced supercontinuum generation in liquid core photonic crystal fiber and dual core optical fiber

The supercontinuum generation (SCG) in liquid core photonic crystal fiber (LCPCF) with versatile nonlinear response and the spectral broadening in dual core optical fiber is presented. The analysis is presented in two phase, phase I deals with the SCG in LCPCF with the effect of saturable nonlinearity and re-orientational nonlinearity. We identify and discuss the generic nature of the saturable nonlinearity and reorientational nonlinearity in the SCG, using suitable model. For the physical explanation, modulational instability and soliton fission techniques is implemented to investigate the impact of saturable nonlinear response and slow nonlinear response, respectively. It is observed that the saturable nonlinearity inevitably suppresses the MI and the subsequent SCG. On the other hand, the re-orientational nonlinearity contributes to the slow nonlinear response in addition to the conventional fast response due to the electronic contribution. The phase II features the exclusive investigation of the spectral broadening in the dual core optical fiber.     

Active phase control and frequency chirp effects on supercontinuum generation in high birefringence photonic crystal fiber

An acoustic-optics programmable dispersive filter (AOPDF) was first employed to actively control the linearly polarized femtosecond pump pulse frequency chirp for supercontinuum (SC) generation in a high birefringence photonic crystal fiber (PCF). By accurately controlling the second order phase distortion and polarization direction of incident pulses, the output SC spectrum can be tuned to various spectral energy distributions and bandwidths. The pump pulse energy and bandwidth are preserved in our experiment. It is found that SC with broader bandwidth can be generated with positive chirped pump pulses except when the chirp value is larger than the optimal value, and the same optimal value exists for the pump pulses polarized along the two principal axes. With optimal positive chirp, more than 78% of the pump energy can be transferred to below 750 nm. Otherwise, negative chirp will weaken the blue-shift broadening and the SC bandwidth.