Tailoring chromatic dispersion in chalcogenide–tellurite microstructured optical fiber

Abstract

We report fabrication of a highly nonlinear hybrid microstructured optical fiber composed of chalcogenide glass core and tellurite glass cladding. The flattened chromatic dispersion can be achieved in such an optical fiber with near zero dispersion wavelength at telecommunication wavelengths λ=1.35–1.7μm, which cannot be achieved in chalcogenide glass optical fibers due to their high refractive index, i.e. n>2.1. We demonstrate a hybrid 4-air hole chalcogenide–tellurite optical fiber (Δn=0.25) with flattened chromatic dispersion around λ=1.55μm. In optimized 12-air hole optical fiber composed of the same glasses, the chromatic dispersion values were achieved between −20 and 32ps/nm/km in a broad wavelength range of 1.5–3.8μm providing the fiber with extremely high nonlinear coefficient 86,000km−1W−1. Hybrid chalcogenide/tellurite fibers pumped with the near infrared lasers give good promise for broadband optical amplification, wavelength conversion, and supercontinuum generation in the near- to mid-infrared region.