Supercontinuum Generation in Heavy-Metal Oxide Glass Based Suspended-Core Photonic Crystal Fibers

TL;DR

This paper explores supercontinuum generation in specialized heavy-metal oxide glass photonic crystal fibers, demonstrating broad spectra through experimental and numerical analysis for applications in nonlinear optics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design of suspended-core soft-glass fibers with high nonlinearity, achieving broad supercontinuum spectra around 1550 nm.

Findings

Two supercontinuum spectra spanning 1.07-2.31 micron and 0.89-2.46 micron were experimentally demonstrated.

Numerical models of dispersion curves matched well with experimental results.

The fibers showed efficient supercontinuum generation in both normal and anomalous dispersion regimes.

Abstract

We investigate supercontinuum generation in several suspended-core soft-glass photonic crystal fibers pumped by an optical parametric oscillator tunable around 1550 nm. The fibers were drawn from lead-bismuth-gallium-cadmium-oxide glass (PBG-81) with a wide transmission window from 0.5-2.7 micron and a high nonlinear refractive index up to 4.3.10^(-19) m^2/W. They have been specifically designed with a microscale suspended hexagonal core for efficient supercontinuum generation around 1550 nm. We experimentally demonstrate two supercontinuum spectra spanning from 1.07-2.31 micron and 0.89-2.46 micron by pumping two PCFs in both normal and anomalous dispersion regimes, respectively. We also numerically model the group velocity dispersion curves for these fibers from their scanning electron microscope images. Results are in good agreement with numerical simulations based on the generalized nonlinear Schrodinger equation including the pump frequency chirp.