Abstract
Supercontinuum generation in chalcogenide fibers is a promising technology for broadband spatially coherent sources in the mid-infrared, but it suffers from discouraging commercial prospects, mainly due to a lack of suitable pump lasers. Here, a promising approach is experimentally demonstrated using an amplified 1.55 μm diode laser to generate a pump continuum up to 4.4 μm in cascaded silica and fluoride fibers. We present experimental evidence and numerical simulations confirming that the spectral-temporal composition of the pump continuum is critical for continued broadening in a chalcogenide fiber. The fundamental physical question is concerned with the long-wavelength components of the pump spectrum, which may consist of either solitons or dispersive waves. In demonstrating this we present a commercially viable fiber-cascading configuration to generate a mid-infrared supercontinuum up to 7 μm in commercial chalcogenide fibers.
Highlights
Supercontinuum generation (SCG) in chalcogenide glass fibers have attracted a great deal of interest due to their nonlinear properties and wide mid-infrared (MIR) transmission band across the molecular fingerprint region to above 14 μm [1,2,3,4,5]
Supercontinuum generation in chalcogenide fibers is a promising technology for broadband spatially coherent sources in the mid-infrared, but it suffers from discouraging commercial prospects, mainly due to a lack of suitable pump lasers
We present experimental evidence and numerical simulations confirming that the spectral-temporal composition of the pump continuum is critical for continued broadening in a chalcogenide fiber
Summary
Supercontinuum generation (SCG) in chalcogenide glass fibers have attracted a great deal of interest due to their nonlinear properties and wide mid-infrared (MIR) transmission band across the molecular fingerprint region to above 14 μm [1,2,3,4,5]. The most mature MIR fiber SC technology is based on fluoride glasses, such as ZrF4-BaF2-LaF3-AlF3-NaF (ZBLAN), owing to their high-power capabilities and excellent transmission from the UV to about 4.5 μm [10,11] Due to these unique properties commercial ZBLAN SC lasers are emerging [12,13,14], and in this regard cascaded SCG has been one of the key enabling technologies for efficient ZBLAN supercontinuum sources, because it has enabled the use of matured technologies such as semiconductor laser diodes, silica fibers, and fiber amplifiers [12,14,15]. The average power of such a long-wavelength spectrum consisting of DWs can be equivalent or even higher than one consisting exclusively of solitons [21], which raises the fundamental question whether both spectra could be used for continued broadening in a chalcogenide fiber To date, this has remained an open question since there have been no experimental results with coupling dispersive waves, or cascading a ZBLAN SC into a chalcogenide fiber. A ZBLAN-chalcogenide cascading scheme was studied numerically by Kubat et al using a scalar approach to demonstrate the possibility of generating a spectrum from 0.9 to 9.0 μm by pumping a 5 μm diameter suspended-core
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