Simon Toft Sørensen

Influence of pump power and modulation instability gain spectrum on seeded supercontinuum and rogue wave generation

The noise properties of a supercontiuum can be significantly improved both in terms of coherence and intensity stability by modulating the input pulse with a seed. In this paper, we numerically investigate the influence of the seed wavelength, the pump power, and the modulation instability gain spectrum on the seeding process. The results can be clearly divided into a number of distinct dynamical regimes depending on the initial four-wave mixing process. We further demonstrate that seeding can be used to generate coherent and incoherent rogue waves, depending on the modulation instability gain spectrum. Finally, we show that the coherent pulse breakup afforded by seeding is washed out by turbulent solitonic dynamics when the pump power is increased to the kilowatt level. Thus our results show that seeding cannot improve the noise performance of a high power supercontinuum source.

Optimum fiber tapers for increasing the power in the blue edge of a supercontinuum-group-acceleration matching.

We demonstrate how the gradient of the tapering in a tapered fiber can significantly affect the trapping and blueshift of dispersive waves (DWs) by a soliton. By modeling the propagation of a fundamental 10 fs soliton through tapered fibers with varying gradients, it is shown that the soliton traps and blueshifts an increased fraction of the energy in its DW when the gradient is decreased. This is quantified by the group-acceleration mismatch between the soliton and DW at the entrance of the taper. These findings have direct implications for the achievable power in the blue edge of a supercontinuum generated in a tapered fiber and explain observations of a lack of power in the blue edge.

Power dependence of supercontinuum noise in uniform and tapered PCFs

We experimentally investigate the noise properties of picosecond supercontinuum spectra generated at different power levels in uniform and tapered photonic crystal fibers. We show that the noise at the spectral edges of the generated supercontinuum is at a constant level independent on the pump power in both tapered and uniform fibers. At high input power the spectral bandwidth is limited by the infrared loss edge, this however has no effect on the noise properties.

Deep-blue supercontinnum sources with optimum taper profiles--verification of GAM.

We use an asymmetric 2 m draw-tower photonic crystal fiber taper to demonstrate that the taper profile needs careful optimisation if you want to develop a supercontinuum light source with as much power as possible in the blue edge of the spectrum. In particular we show, that for a given taper length, the downtapering should be as long as possible. We argue how this may be explained by the concept of group-acceleration mismatch (GAM) and we confirm the results using conventional symmetrical short tapers made on a taper station, which have varying downtapering lengths.

Nonlinear soliton matching between optical fibers

In this Letter, we propose a generic nonlinear coupling coefficient, η(NL)²=η|γ/β₂|(fiber2)/|γ/β₂|(fiber1), which gives a quantitative measure for the efficiency of nonlinear matching of optical fibers by describing how a fundamental soliton couples from one fiber into another. Specifically, we use η(NL) to demonstrate a significant soliton self-frequency shift of a fundamental soliton, and we show that nonlinear matching can take precedence over linear mode matching. The nonlinear coupling coefficient depends on both the dispersion (β₂) and nonlinearity (γ), as well as on the power coupling efficiency η. Being generic, η(NL) enables engineering of general waveguide systems, e.g., for optimized Raman redshift or supercontinuum generation.

The role of phase coherence in seeded supercontinuum generation

The noise properties of a supercontinuum can be controlled by modulating the pump with a seed pulse. In this paper, we numerically investigate the influence of seeding with a partially phase coherent weak pulse or continuous wave. We demonstrate that the noise properties of the generated supercontinuum are highly sensitive to the degree of phase noise of the seed and that a nearly coherent seed pulse is needed to achieve a coherent pulse break-up and low noise supercontinuum. The specific maximum allowable linewidth of the seed laser is found to decrease with increasing pump power.

Single-mode pumped high air-fill fraction photonic crystal fiber taper for high-power deep-blue supercontinuum sources

Dispersion control with axially nonuniform photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) permits supercontinuum (SC) generation into the deep-blue from an ytterbium pump laser. In this Letter, we exploit the full degrees of freedom afforded by PCFs to fabricate a fiber with longitudinally increasing air-fill fraction and decreasing diameter directly on the draw-tower. We demonstrate SC generation extending down to 375 nm in one such monolithic fiber device that is single-mode at 1064 nm at the input end.

Power dependence of supercontinuum noise in uniform and tapered PCFs: erratum

An error was made in the calculation of the relative intensity noise (RIN) because of an incorrectly specified value of the photodetector DC transimpedance gain.

New horizons for Supercontinuum light sources: From UV to Mid-IR

Commercially available supercontinuum sources continue to experience a strong growth in a wide range of industrial and scientific applications. In addition, there is a significant research effort focused on extending the wavelength coverage both towards UV and Mid-IR. Broadband sources covering these wavelength regions have received significant attention from potential users, as there is a wide array of applications for which there are few suitable alternative light sources – if any. Our developments in the field of Mid-IR supercontinuum sources have been based on radical approaches; such as soft glasses and novel pumping schemes, whereas shifting the spectrum further towards the UV has been based on sophisticated microstructure fiber designs. Here we present our latest developments in tailoring the power and spectral coverage of spatially coherent broadband supercontinuum sources.

Asymmetric draw-tower tapers for supercontinuum generation and verification of the novel concept of group-acceleration matching

We present the first short asymmetrical draw-tower photonic crystal fiber taper for maximizing the power in the blue edge of a supercontinuum. The results clearly emphasize the importance of the taper shape on the spectrum.