Ultrabroadband supercontinuum light expanding from ultraviolet to 6.28 μm is generated in a centimeter-long fluoride fiber pumped by a 1450 nm femtosecond laser. The spectral broadening in the fluoride fiber is caused by self-phase modulation, Raman scattering and four-wave mixing. The experimental and simulated results show that fluoride fiber is a promising candidate for generating the midinfrared supercontinuum light up to 8 μm.

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We demonstrate the supercontinuum (SC) generation in a suspended-core As(2)S(3) chalcogenide microstructured optical fiber (MOF). The variation of SC is investigated by changing the fiber length, pump peak power and pump wavelength. In the case of long fibers (20 and 40 cm), the SC ranges are discontinuous and stop at the wavelengths shorter than 3500 nm, due to the absorption of fiber. In the case of short fibers (1.3 and 2.4 cm), the SC ranges are continuous and can extend to the wavelengths longer than 4 μm. The SC broadening is observed when the pump peak power increases from 0.24 to 1.32 kW at 2500 nm. The SC range increases with the pump wavelength changing from 2200 to 2600 nm, corresponding to the dispersion of As(2)S(3) MOF from the normal to anomalous region. The SC generation is simulated by the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The simulation includes the SC difference between 1.3 and 2.4 cm long fiber by 2500 nm pumping, the variation of SC with pump peak power in 2.4 cm long fiber, and the variation of SC with pump wavelength in 1.3 cm long fiber. The simulation agrees well with the experiment.

Tellurite glass microstructure fibers with a 1 microm hexagonal core were fabricated successfully by accurately controlling the temperature field in the fiber-drawing process. The diameter ratio of holey region to core (DRHC) for the fiber can be adjusted freely in the range of 1-20 by pumping a positive pressure into the holes when drawing fiber, which provides much freedom in engineering the chromatic dispersion. With the increase of DRHC from 3.5 to 20, the zero dispersion wavelengths were shifted several hundred nanometers, the cutoff wavelength due to confinement loss was increased from 1600 nm to 3800 nm, and the nonlinear coefficient gamma was increased from 3.9 to 5.7 W(-1)/m. Efficient visible emissions due to third harmonic generation were found for fibers with a DRHC of 10 and 20 under the 1557 nm pump of a femtosecond fiber laser. One octave flattened supercontinuum spectrum was generated from fibers with a DRHC of 3.5, 10 and 20 by the 1064 nm pump of a picosecond fiber laser. To the best of our knowledge, we have for the first time fabricated a hexagonal core fiber by soft glass with such a small core size, and have demonstrated a large influence of the holey region on the dispersion, nonlinear coefficient and supercontinuum generation for such fiber.

A highly nonlinear composite fiber, which has a 1.5 microm chalcogenide glass core surrounded by a tellurite glass microstructure cladding, has been fabricated by the method of stack and draw. A tellurite glass capillary containing a As(2)S(3) rod was sealed with negative pressure inside. Then this capillary and other empty capillaries were stacked into a tellurite glass tube, and elongated into a cane. This cane was then inserted into another tellurite glass jacket tube and drawn into the composite microstructure fiber. The fiber has a flattened chromatic dispersion together with a zero dispersion wavelength located in the near infrared range. The propagation losses at 1.55 microm were 18.3 dB/m. The nonlinear coefficient at 1.55 microm was 9.3 m(-1)W(-1). Such a high nonlinear coefficient counteracts the high propagation losses to a large extent. A supercontinuum spectrum of 20-dB bandwidth covering 800-2400 nm was generated by this composite microstructure fiber.