3,313 research outputs found
Supercontinuum generation in media with sign-alternated dispersion
When an ultrafast optical pulse with high intensity is propagating through
transparent material a supercontinuum can be coherently generated by self-phase
modulation, which is essential to many photonic applications in fibers and
integrated waveguides. However, the presence of dispersion causes stagnation of
spectral broadening past a certain propagation length, requiring an increased
input peak power for further broadening. We present a concept to drive
supercontinuum generation with significantly lower input power by counteracting
spectral stagnation via alternating the sign of group velocity dispersion along
the propagation. We demonstrate the effect experimentally in dispersion
alternating fiber in excellent agreement with modeling, revealing almost an
order of magnitude reduced peak power compared to uniform dispersion.
Calculations reveal a similar power reduction also with integrated optical
waveguides, simultaneously with a significant increase of flat bandwidth, which
is important for on-chip broadband photonics.Comment: Main text and supplementary informatio
On-chip two-octave supercontinuum generation by enhancing self-steepening of optical pulses
Dramatic advances in supercontinuum generation have been made recently using
photonic crystal fibers, but it is quite challenging to obtain an
octave-spanning supercontinuum on a chip, partially because of strong
dispersion in high-index-contrast nonlinear integrated waveguides. We show by
simulation that extremely flat and low dispersion can be achieved in silicon
nitride slot waveguides over a wavelength band of 500 nm. Different from
previously reported supercontinua that were generated either by higher-order
soliton fission in anomalous dispersion regime or by self phase modulation in
normal dispersion regime, a two-octave supercontinuum from 630 to 2650 nm (360
THz in total) can be generated by greatly enhancing self-steepening in
nonlinear pulse propagation in almost zero dispersion regime, when an optical
shock as short as 3 fs is formed, which enables on-chip ultra-wide-band
applications
Efficiency of dispersive wave generation in dual concentric core microstructured fiber
We describe the generation of powerful dispersive waves that are observed
when pumping a dual concentric core microstructured fiber by means of a
sub-nanosecond laser emitting at the wavelength of~1064 nm. The presence of
three zeros in the dispersion curve, their spectral separation from the pump
wavelength, and the complex dynamics of solitons originated by the pump pulse
break-up, all contribute to boost the amplitude of the dispersive wave on the
long-wavelength side of the pump. The measured conversion efficiency towards
the dispersive wave at 1548 nm is as high as 50%. Our experimental analysis of
the output spectra is completed by the acquisition of the time delays of the
different spectral components. Numerical simulations and an analytical
perturbative analysis identify the central wavelength of the red-shifted pump
solitons and the dispersion profile of the fiber as the key parameters for
determining the efficiency of the dispersive wave generation process.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figure
Directional supercontinuum generation: the role of the soliton
In this paper we numerically study supercontinuum generation by pumping a
silicon nitride waveguide, with two zero-dispersion wavelengths, with
femtosecond pulses. The waveguide dispersion is designed so that the pump pulse
is in the normal-dispersion regime. We show that because of self-phase
modulation, the initial pulse broadens into the anomalous-dispersion regime,
which is sandwiched between the two normal-dispersion regimes, and here a
soliton is formed. The interaction of the soliton and the broadened pulse in
the normal-dispersion regime causes additional spectral broadening through
formation of dispersive waves by non-degenerate four-wave mixing and
cross-phase modulation. This broadening occurs mainly towards the second
normal-dispersion regime. We show that pumping in either normal-dispersion
regime allows broadening towards the other normal-dispersion regime. This
ability to steer the continuum extension towards the direction of the other
normal-dispersion regime beyond the sandwiched anomalous-dispersion regime
underlies the directional supercontinuum notation. We numerically confirm the
approach in a standard silica microstructured fiber geometry with two
zero-dispersion wavelengths
Nonlinear femtosecond pulse propagation in an all-solid photonic bandgap fiber
Nonlinear femtosecond pulse propagation in an all-solid photonic bandgap fiber is experimentally and numerically investigated. Guiding light in such fiber occurs via two mechanisms: photonic bandgap in the central silica core or total internal reflection in the germanium doped inclusions. By properly combining spectral filtering, dispersion tailoring and pump coupling into the fiber modes, we experimentally demonstrate efficient supercontinuum generation with controllable spectral bandwidth
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
non-linear propagation dynamics and pump depletion.Comment: Aspects of this work were presented in Paper ThJ2 at OECC/ACOFT 2008,
Sydney Australia 7-10 July (2008). Journal paper submitted for publication 30
July 200
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