Supercontinuum

About: Supercontinuum is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 7071 publications have been published within this topic receiving 127671 citations.

Mid infrared gas spectroscopy using efficient fiber laser driven photonic chip-based supercontinuum.

Abstract: Directly accessing the middle infrared, the molecular functional group spectral region, via supercontinuum generation processes based on turn-key fiber lasers offers the undeniable advantage of simplicity and robustness. Recently, the assessment of the coherence of the mid-IR dispersive wave in silicon nitride (Si3N4) waveguides, pumped at telecom wavelength, established an important first step towards mid-IR frequency comb generation based on such compact systems. Yet, the spectral reach and efficiency still fall short for practical implementation. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that large cross-section Si3N4 waveguides pumped with 2 μm fs-fiber laser can reach the important spectroscopic spectral region in the 3–4 μm range, with up to 35% power conversion and milliwatt-level output powers. As a proof of principle, we use this source for detection of C2H2 by absorption spectroscopy. Such result makes these sources suitable candidate for compact, chip-integrated spectroscopic and sensing applications. The mid-infrared spectral region is important for gas sensing applications. Here, Grassani et al. demonstrate efficient supercontinuum generation from fibre-lasers injected into silicon nitride waveguides to provide a turn-key mid-IR source with milliwatt-level output.

Coherent fiber supercontinuum for biophotonics.

Abstract: Biophotonics and nonlinear fiber optics have traditionally been two independent fields. Since the discovery of fiber-based supercontinuum generation in 1999, biophotonics applications employing incoherent light have experienced a large impact from nonlinear fiber optics, primarily because of the access to a wide range of wavelengths and a uniform spatial profile afforded by fiber supercontinuum. However, biophotonics applications employing coherent light have not benefited from the most well-known techniques of supercontinuum generation for reasons such as poor coherence (or high noise), insufficient controllability, and inadequate portability. Fortunately, a few key techniques involving nonlinear fiber optics and femtosecond laser development have emerged to overcome these critical limitations. Despite their relative independence, these techniques are the focus of this review, because they can be integrated into a low-cost portable biophotonics source platform. This platform can be shared across many different areas of research in biophotonics, enabling new applications such as point-of-care coherent optical biomedical imaging.

10 GHz fundamental mode fiber laser using a graphene saturable absorber

Abstract: All-fiber mode-locked lasers with fundamental repetition rates of several gigahertz are sought after for applications in optical communications and metrology. In this paper, we propose a fiber Fabry-Perot laser mode-locked by a graphene-based saturable absorber that operates at a fundamental repetition rate of 9.67 GHz. We use this laser as the seed for the generation of supercontinuum with 0.08 nm mode spacing.

Octave spanning supercontinuum in an As 2 S 3 taper using ultra-low pump pulse energy

Abstract: An octave spanning spectrum is generated in an As 2 S 3 taper via 77 pJ pulses from an ultrafast fiber laser. Chirp compensation allows the octave to be generated directly from the un-amplified laser output.

Supercontinuum generation in bandgap engineered, back‐end CMOS compatible silicon rich nitride waveguides

Abstract: CMOS-compatible nonlinear optics platforms with negligible nonlinear losses and high nonlinearity are of great merit. Silicon, silicon nitride and Hydex glass have made significant headway in nonlinear optical signal processing, though none of these platforms possesses the highly sought after combination of high nonlinearity and negligible nonlinear losses. In this manuscript, we present a nonlinear optics platform based on silicon-rich nitride, deposited at a low temperature of 250°C compatible with back-end CMOS processing. The silicon-rich nitride is designed and engineered in composition to have a bandgap of 2.05 eV, such that the two-photon absorption edge is well below 1.55 μm. The designed and developed waveguides have a nonlinear parameter of 550 W−1/m, 500 times larger than that in silicon nitride waveguides, while at the same time not possessing two-photon and free-carrier losses. Using 500-fs pulses, we generate supercontinuum exceeding 0.6 of an octave.