Ultraflat, broadband, and highly coherent supercontinuum generation in all-solid microstructured optical fibers with all-normal dispersion

Abstract

High flatness, wide bandwidth, and high-coherence properties of supercontinuum (SC) generation in fibers are crucial in many applications. It is challenging to achieve SC spectra in a combination of the properties, since special dispersion profiles are required, especially when pump pulses with duration over 100 fs are employed. We propose an all-solid microstructured fiber composed only of hexagonal glass elements. The optimized fiber possesses an ultraflat all-normal dispersion profile, covering a wide wavelength interval of approximately 1.55 μm. An SC spectrum spanning from approximately 1030 to 2030 nm (corresponding to nearly one octave) with flatness <3 dB is numerically generated in the fiber with 200 fs pump pulses at 1.55 μm. The results indicate that the broadband ultraflat SC sources can be all-fiber and miniaturized due to commercially achievable 200-fs fiber lasers. Moreover, the SC pulses feature high coherence and a single pulse in the time domain, which can be compressed to 13.9-fs pulses with high quality even for simple linear chirp compensation. The Fourier-limited pulse duration of the spectrum is 3.19 fs, corresponding to only 0.62 optical cycles.