Generation of octave-spanning supercontinuum with 1550-nm amplified diode-laser pulses and a dispersion-shifted fiber.

We present a compact supercontinuum source using a dispersion-shifted fiber and an amplified diode-laser pulse source. Gain-switched DFB laser operating at 1550-nm wavelength, which provides 30-ps pulses, was used for generating the seeding pulses. And serially cascaded low-cost EDFAs were employed to boost the peak power of the pulses to more than 1 kW. Single-mode supercontinuum spanning nearly the full near-IR band was obtained by passing the amplified high-power pulses through a dispersion-shifted fiber. By investigating various characteristics of the supercontinuum generation, the walk-off between the spectral components was found to limit the effective interaction length of the spectrum-broadening effects. An optimal length of the fiber to obtain a flat spectrum was determined, which minimizes undesirable excessive Raman effect.

[1]  Thibaut Sylvestre,et al.  Generation of a broadband single-mode supercontinuum in a conventional dispersion-shifted fiber by use of a subnanosecond microchip laser. , 2003, Optics letters.

[2]  A. Galvanauskas,et al.  Hybrid diode-laser fiber-amplifier source of high-energy ultrashort pulses. , 1994, Optics letters.

[3]  J. Taylor,et al.  High brightness picosecond all-fiber generation in 525-1800nm range with picosecond Yb pumping. , 2005, Optics express.

[4]  Anton Husakou,et al.  Supercontinuum generation, four-wave mixing, and fission of higher-order solitons in photonic-crystal fibers , 2002 .

[5]  Hidehiko Takara.  Multiple optical carrier generation from a supercontinuum source , 2002 .

[6]  P. Russell,et al.  Supercontinuum and four-wave mixing with Q-switched pulses in endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fibres. , 2004, Optics express.

[7]  W Drexler,et al.  Compact, broad-bandwidth fiber laser for sub-2-microm axial resolution optical coherence tomography in the 1300-nm wavelength region. , 2003, Optics letters.

[8]  A. Fercher,et al.  Submicrometer axial resolution optical coherence tomography. , 2002, Optics letters.

[9]  Norihiko Nishizawa,et al.  Experimental and numerical analysis of widely broadened supercontinuum generation in highly nonlinear dispersion-shifted fiber with a femtosecond pulse , 2004 .

[10]  C. Jørgensen,et al.  High-power supercontinuum generation in highly nonlinear, dispersion-shifted fibers by use of a continuous-wave Raman fiber laser. , 2004, Optics letters.

[11]  R. Leonhardt,et al.  Supercontinuum generation by stimulated Raman scattering and parametric four-wave mixing in photonic crystal fibers , 2002 .

[12]  James Fujimoto,et al.  Optical coherence tomography using a continuous-wave, high-power, Raman continuum light source. , 2004, Optics express.

[13]  V. Couderc,et al.  White-light supercontinuum generation in normally dispersive optical fiber using original multi-wavelength pumping system. , 2004, Optics express.

[14]  J W Nicholson,et al.  All-fiber, octave-spanning supercontinuum. , 2003, Optics letters.