Highly nonlinear photonic-crystal fibers for the spectral transformation of Cr: forsterite laser pulses

Abstract

We demonstrate novel photonic-crystal fibers (PCFs) fabricated of a highly nonlinear glass. Dispersion profiles and nonlinearity of these fibers are tailored with an array of submicron holes in the fiber core. With the PCF structure designed to provide a nonlinearity on the order of 10 3 W −1 km −1 at the radiation wavelength of 1 μm and a fundamental-mode dispersion profile with zero group-velocity dispersion around 1.19 μm, unamplified femtosecond Cr: forsterite laser pulses are efficiently frequency-converted into the 540–1000-nm wavelength range through solitonic spectral-transformation mechanisms and four-wave mixing.