Wave breaking in tapered holey fibers

We numerically study the propagation of 1-ps laser pulse in three tapered holey fibers (THFs).The curvature indices of the concave,linear,and convex tapers are 2.0,1.0,and 0.5,respectively.The central wavelength,located in the normal dispersion regime,is 800 nm.The nonlinear coefficient of the THFs increases from the initial 0.095 m-1· W-1 to the final 0.349 m-1·W-1.Wave breaking accompanied by oscillatory structures occurs near pulse edges,and sidelobes appear in the pulse spectrum.With the increase in propagation distance z,the pulse shape becomes broader and the pulse spectrum flattens.A concave THF is advantageous to the generation of wave breaking and enables easier achievement of super flat spectra at short lengths.