UV generation in a pure-silica holey fiber

We report supercontinuum generation extending to 300 nm in the UV from a pure-silica holey fiber. The broad spectrum was obtained by launching ultra-short pulses (150 fs, 10 nJ at 820 nm) from an amplified Ti:sapphire laser. The extension of holey-fiber-based supercontinuum generation into the UV should prove to be of immediate application in spectroscopy. By slightly detuning the launch conditions we excited a higher order spatial mode, which produced a narrower supercontinuum, but with enhanced conversion efficiency at a series of blue/UV peaks around 360 nm. We present numerical simulations, which suggest that differences in the dispersion profiles between the modes are an important factor in explaining this enhancement. In a related experiment, using the same laser source and fiber, we demonstrate a visible supercontinuum from several subsidiary cores, with distinct colours in each core. The subsidiary cores were excited by an appropriate input coupling. Fabrication of a fiber with a range of core sizes (dispersion profiles) for tailored supercontinuum generation can therefore be envisaged for practical applications. PACS 42.72.Bj; 42.79.Nv; 42.81.Dp     

Supercontinuum generation of ultrashort laser pulses in air at different central wavelengths

Supercontinuum generation by femtosecond filaments in air is investigated for different laser wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet to infrared. Particular attention is paid on the role of third-harmonic generation and temporal steepening effects, which enlarge the blue part of the spectrum. A unidirectional pulse propagation model and nonlinear evolution equations are numerically integrated and their results are compared. Apart from the choice of the central wavelength, we emphasize the importance of the clamped intensity reached by self-guided pulses, together with their temporal duration and propagation length as key players acting on both supercontinuum generation of the pump wave and emergence of the third harmonic. Maximal broadening is observed for large wavelengths and long filamentation ranges.     

Long-range spectrally and spatially resolved radiation from filaments in air

The distance-resolved spectral intensity distribution of the backscattered light from long filaments generated in air using ultra-short and intense laser pulses is presented. A clean fluorescence spectrum from N₂ molecules and ions, which is produced by the high peak intensity inside the plasma filament of the fundamental pulse, was clearly resolved from the backscattered supercontinuum. The supercontinuum generated by both the fundamental and the third-harmonic pulses developed progressively and became fully developed only at the end of the filamentation.     

Microjoule supercontinuum generation by stretched megawatt femtosecond laser pulses in a large-mode-area photonic-crystal fiber

Microjoule supercontinuum generation is demonstrated using a large-mode-area photonic-crystal fiber (PCF) pumped by an amplified stretched-pulse output of a mode-locked Cr:forsterite laser. A PCF with a mode area of 380 μm² is employed to transform 300-fs Cr:forsterite laser pulses with a peak-power of a few megawatts into a supercontinuum radiation with a spectrum spanning from 700 to 1800 nm and a total energy of 1.15 μJ.     

Supercontinuum generation in a multiple-submicron-core microstructure fiber: toward limiting waveguide enhancement of nonlinear-optical processes

A new design of supercontinuum-generating microstructure fibers is demonstrated, with supercontinuum emission produced in six submicron-diameter cores surrounding a larger central core with a diameter of 2 to 5 m. Such a multiple-core microstructure-fiber design not only allows the total energy of supercontinuum emission to be increased, but also offers a practical way of fabricating microstructure-integrated bundles of small-core high-index-step fibers with very large lengths. Submicron-core fused-silica microstructure fibers are shown to provide maximum ratios of the fiber-core-confined laser power to the fiber-core diameter, allowing limiting waveguide enhancement factors to be approached for a broad class of nonlinear-optical processes contributing to supercontinuum generation. PACS 42.65.Wi; 42.81.Qb     

Self-steepening is an abrupt process

We discover that self-steepening occurs so fast with slight change in the input energy that it could be considered as an on-off process whose potential application could be far reaching. This observation was carried out by generating a stable uniform pattern of femtosecond filaments inside a methanol cell and measuring the evolution of the white light spectra. We found that the white light supercontinuum, a consequence of self-steepening, turned on almost instantaneously with respect to a very slight change in the energy.     

Nonlinear pulse propagation and supercontinuum generation in photonic nanowires: experiment and simulation

We investigate theoretically and experimentally the process of supercontinuum generated in sub-wavelength waveguides. We observe experimentally that supercontinuum generated in these photonic nanowires is increasingly blue-shifted from the pump wavelength for decreasing minimum core diameters. We also find the spectral features are sensitive to the specific nanowire profile. Numerical simulations using the nonlinear envelope equation show that accurate modeling requires consideration of the nonlinearity and full dispersion along the entire nanowire profile as well as a wavelength dependent loss. Specifically, the blue-shifting is found to result from an increasing loss for wavelengths larger than the core diameter.     

Temperature effects on supercontinuum generation using a continuous-wave Raman fiber laser

We describe the effect of temperature variations on supercontinuum (SC) generation in optical fibers using a continuous-wave (CW) Raman fiber laser as a pump. We achieve supercontinuum generation by pumping only ∼2 W of power into a 7 km-long nonzero dispersion-shifted fiber (NZDSF) in the region of small anomalous dispersion. In these conditions, the supercontinuum builds up basically on modulational instability and Raman. At room temperature, the supercontinuum covers effectively the S, C and L transmission bands defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Temperature tuning of the fiber environment provides a means of tuning the fiber dispersion, and thus a means of changing the width and shape of the supercontinuum spectrum. We demonstrate a 27% increase in the 10-dB SC width. We believe that the application of this new tuning mechanism to other experimental configurations using pulsed sources might be used to produce extremely broad supercontinuums.     

Flat Supercontinuum Generation at 1550 nm in a Dispersion-Flattened Microstructure Fibre Using Picosecond Pulse

The generation of a flat supercontinuum of over 80nm in the 1550nm region by injecting 1.6ps 10 GHz repetition rate optical pulses into an 80-m-long dispersion-flattened microstructure fibre is demonstrated. The fibre has small normal dispersion with a variation smaller than 1.5 （ps·nm^-1·km^-1） between 1500 and 1650nm. The generated supercontinuum ranging from 1513 to 1591 nm has the flatness of ±1.5 dB and it is not so flat in the range of several nanometres around the pump wavelength 1552nm. Numerical simulation is also used to study the effect of optical loss, fibre parameters and pumping conditions on supercontinuum generation in the dispersion-flattened microstructure fibre, and can be used for further optimization to generate flat broad spectra.     

Generation of femtosecond pulses by two-photon pumping supercontinuum-seeded collinear traveling wave amplification in a dye solution

Visible femtosecond (fs) laser pulses have been obtained in a dye solution with a very simple traveling wave collinear configuration. A femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser (790 nm) pumps the dye solution by two-photon absorption and simultaneously generates supercontinuum, which seeds a light-amplification mechanism. Cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating measurements reveal a chirped structure in the dye pulse. The shortest pulse duration achieved is 170 fs and the overall energy efficiency of the process is typically 25%. Received: 22 March 2001 / Revised version: 4 July 2001 / Published online: 19 September 2001     

Two-octave spectral broadening of subnanojoule Cr:forsterite femtosecond laser pulses in tapered fibers

Spectral broadening of femtosecond Cr:forsterite laser pulses is enhanced due to the use of tapered fibers. Supercontinuum generation with unamplified subnanojoule femtosecond Cr:forsterite laser pulses is observed for the first time. With 40-fs 0.6-nJ pulses of 1.25-μm Cr:forsterite laser radiation coupled into a tapered fiber having a taper waist diameter of about 2 μm and a taper waist length of 90 mm, we observed the spectra spanning more than two octaves at the output of the fiber in the regime of anomalous group-velocity dispersion. This result opens the way for the creation of compact femtosecond Cr:forsterite laser plus tapered fiber systems for optical metrology and biomedical applications. Received: 23 October 2001 / Accepted: 16 January 2002 / Published online: 14 March 2002     

Isolated-attosecond-pulse generation by suppressing multiple rescatterings with plasmon-enhanced laser fields

An efficient scheme is proposed to generate broadband supercontinuum spectra and isolated attosecond laser pulses by suppressing multiple rescatterings with plasmon-enhanced laser fields. High-order harmonic generation from helium atoms in long wavelength is theoretically investigated. It is found that a quantum path interference and a multiple rescatterings interference are two fundamental limitations against the smooth degree of harmonic spectra. Numerical results show that the coherent superposition state in combination with plasmon-enhanced laser fields is robust for broadband supercontinuum generation. Then an isolated 78-as pulse can be directly generated.     

Femtosecond laser pulse filamentation versus optical breakdown in H<Subscript>2</Subscript>O

The competition between femtosecond laser pulse induced optical breakdown and femtosecond laser pulse filamentation in condensed matter is studied both experimentally and numerically using water as an example. The coexistence of filamentation and breakdown is observed under tight focusing conditions. The development of the filamentation process from the creation of a single filament to the formation of many filaments at higher pulse energy is characterized systematically. In addition, strong deflection and modulation of the supercontinuum is observed. They manifest themselves at the beginning of the filamentation process, near the highly disordered plasma created by optical breakdown at the geometrical focus. Received: 9 July 2002 / Revised version: 15 November 2002 / Published online: 19 March 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +1-418/6562-623, E-mail: wliu@phy.ulaval.ca     

Fast wavelength-tunable ultra-violet laser source for confocal Fura-2AM imaging

We report a novel wavelength-flexible laser source for three-dimensional ultra-violet imaging. Based on supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber, the resultant broadband laser source extended from λ = 331 nm into the visible region of the spectrum. Using an electronically-controlled filter wheel and filter set with a response time of approximately 50 ms, rapid wavelength selection was performed. The described scheme is capable of exciting the current range of ultra-violet-excited fluorophores and the simple and rapid wavelength control also provides a new approach for fast ratiometric imaging of Fura-2AM, facilitating an easy method of performing quantitative intracellular calcium concentration measurements.     

Adaptive femtosecond pulse shaping to control supercontinuum generation in a microstructure fiber

Efficient confinement of laser radiation in the core of a photonic crystal fiber increases the nonlinear processes resulting in supercontinuum generation. The technique of adaptive pulse shaping using an evolutionary algorithm provides a method to gain control over such highly nonlinear processes. Adaptive pulse shaping of the driving laser radiation passing through the photonic crystal fiber is employed to modify the shape and composition of the output supercontinuum. Amplitude and phase shaping are used to optimize the broadband emission between 500 and 700 nm, as well as a soliton centered at 935 nm. The intensities of the emission and of the soliton driven by a shaped laser pulse increase in comparison to an unshaped pulse by factors of 4 and 3, respectively. The spectral width in the range of 500-600 nm is increased by approximately 40%. In addition, the suppression of self-steepening effects in supercontinuum spectra is demonstrated.     

Modulation control and spectral shaping of optical fiber supercontinuum generation in the picosecond regime

Numerical simulations are used to study how fiber supercontinuum generation seeded by picosecond pulses can be actively controlled through the use of input pulse modulation. By carrying out multiple simulations in the presence of noise, we show how tailored supercontinuum spectra with increased bandwidth and improved stability can be generated using an input envelope modulation of appropriate frequency and depth. The results are discussed in terms of the nonlinear propagation dynamics and pump depletion.     

Ultra-broadband continuum generation by hollow-fiber cascading

A novel spectral broadening technique, based on hollow-fiber cascading, is reported, which allows the generation of a supercontinuum extending to a bandwidth exceeding 510 THz with excellent spatial beam quality. High-peak-power, sub-7-fs light pulses tunable from the visible to the near infrared have been generated by compression of portions of the supercontinuum, employing different sets of chirped mirrors. Received: 11 July 2002 / Revised version: 3 September 2002 / Published online: 15 November 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +39-02/2399-6126, E-mail: mauro.nisoli@fisi.polimi.it     

Enhanced soliton self-frequency shift of ultrashort light pulses

Photonic-crystal fibers are used to study scenarios of soliton self-frequency shift for laser pulses with initial pulse lengths much less than the Raman-mode period of the fiber material. A typical frequency shift of subnanojoule Ti: sapphire-laser pulses with an initial duration of about 30 fs transmitted through a fiber with a core diameter of about 1.6 μm and a length of about 7 cm exceeds 100 THz. The rate of soliton self-frequency shift is radically increased by reducing the initial pulse width.     

Pulse self-compression in normally dispersive bulk media

We experimentally demonstrate that high-power femtosecond pulses can be compressed during the nonlinear propagation in the normally dispersive solid bulk medium. The self-compression behavior was detailedly investigated under a variety of experimental conditions, and the temporal and spectral characteristics of resulted pulses were found to be significantly affected by the input pulse intensity, with higher intensity corresponding to shorter compressed pulses. By passing through a piece of BK7 glass, a self-compression from 50 to 20 fs was achieved, with a compression factor of about 2.5. However, the output pulse was observed to be split into two peaks when the input intensity is high enough to generate supercontinuum and conical emission.     

非均匀微结构光纤中双折射现象的研究

报道了利用飞秒脉冲激光与非均匀微结构光纤相互作用中产生超连续光谱后在非均匀微结构光纤传输中双折射拍频现象的研究.利用35?fs的飞秒激光脉冲在高双折射微结构光纤中的传输过程中直接观察到了拍频现象.并利用有限元方法对该光纤进行了模拟计算分析，计算得出在600?nm处拍频长度为毫米量级.所得结果与实验一致. 关键词： 双折射效应 微结构光纤 超连续光谱 有限元法