Nonlinear Fiber Optics, 6th Edition

Chapter 13

Supercontinuum generation

Abstract

For sufficiently intense pulses, the pulse spectrum inside the fiber becomes so broad that it may extend over a frequency range exceeding 100 THz. Such extreme spectral broadening is referred to as supercontinuum

generation. Although this topic attracted some attention during the decades of 1980s and 1990s, it was only after 2000, with the emergence of microstructured and photonic crystal fibers, that the use of optical fibers for supercontinuum generation became common. Since physical mechanisms responsible for creating a supercontinuum depend on the pulse width, we discuss in the first two sections the cases of picosecond and femtosecond pulses separately. Section 13.3 focuses on the physical mechanisms ...