Experimental investigation of dispersive wave generation and evolution in a tellurite microstructured optical fiber

Abstract

A four-hole tellurite microstructured optical fiber (MOF) was designed and fabricated based on TeO2–Bi2O3–ZnO–Na2O (TBZN), and the fiber loss was 0.1 dB/m@1550 nm. Based on a 3 m tellurite MOF, dispersive wave (DW) generation and evolution was experimentally investigated at the pump wavelengths of 1778 nm, 1812 nm, and 1878 nm. With the increase of the average pump power, DWs trapped by optical solitons were observed at the blue edge wavelength, but their formation became more and more difficult with the pump wavelength shifting far away from the zero-dispersion wavelength. The variation pattern of center wavelengths and peak powers of the fundamental optical solitons and DWs were investigated: the center wavelength distribution satisfied the group velocity matching; the peak power of the fundamental DW gradually exceeded that of the fundamental optical soliton with the increase of the average pump power. Furthermore, using the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation, simulation on the generation of DWs and optical solitons was carried out at 1778 nm, 40 mW, the result of which agreed well with the experimental observation. This investigation is instructive for DW applications in tunable laser sources, wavelength conversion, and time frequency metrology.