Supercontinuum generation enhancement in all-solid all-normal dispersion soft glass photonic crystal fiber pumped at 1550 nm

Abstract

We study supercontinuum generation enhancement in an all-normal dispersion, all-glass photonic crystal fiber made of lead-silicate glasses. Dispersion characteristics were optimized through adjustment of regular hexagonal lattice of photonic crystal fiber in case of three different, thermally matched pairs of glasses. Supercontinuum generation was simulated with split-step Fourier method using the model that takes into account frequency-dependent effective mode area and losses, Raman response of the medium and temporal shape of the input pulse. An octave-spanning coherent supercontinuum has been obtained for all-glass fiber with lattice constant Λ=1.73μm and filling factor d/Λ=0.8, made of silicate SF6/F2, spanning 850–2200nm wavelengths in 10dB dynamic range and pumped with pulses with energy as low as 3nJ at 1550nm.