Generation of Wideband and Flat Supercontinuum over a 280-nm Spectral Range from a Dispersion-Flattened Optical Fiber with Normal Group-Velocity Dispersion

Fumio FUTAMI
Yuichi TAKUSHIMA
Kazuro KIKUCHI

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E82-B    No.8    pp.1265-1272
Publication Date: 1999/08/25
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section INVITED PAPER (Joint Special Issue on Recent Progress in Optoelectronics and Communications)
Category: Optical Fibers and Cables
Keyword: 
supercontinuum,  self-phase modulation,  group-velocity dispersion,  dispersion-flattened fiber,  

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Summary: 
Aiming at wideband and flat supercontinuum generation (SC) from optical fibers in the 1.55-µm wavelength region, we study both experimentally and theoretically how SC spectra are influenced by group-velocity dispersion (GVD) of fibers. In the anomalous GVD region, since the peak power of pump pulses is kept high during propagation through the fiber by the higher-order soliton effect, the Raman effect has an adverse effect to flat and wideband SC generation. In the zero GVD region, the interplay of the third-order dispersion (TOD) and the self-phase modulation splits the SC spectrum into two main components. On the other hand, in the normal GVD region, nevertheless the SC spectrum broadens wider and smoother than those in anomalous and zero GVD regions, it is still asymmetric when TOD of the fiber can not be ignored. From these results, we find that a dispersion-flattened fiber with normal GVD is the most suitable for flat and wideband SC generation. A 280-nm wide SC spectrum with the spectral-density fluctuation less than 10 dB is actually generated from such a fiber.