High Power Mid-infrared Supercontinuum Generation in Silica Photonic Crystal Fiber

Non-silica fibers have the intrinsic limitations in high power supercontinuum generation.High power mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in silica photonic crystal fiber is firstly investigated in our studies. The dispersion of fiber is designed to be beneficial to supercontinuum broadening to mid-infrared region. Meanwhile,to withstand high pumping power,a relatively large core diameter is essential. On the premise of supercontinuum broadening to 3. 4 μm,fiber length is optimized to reduce the loss of the optical fibers. The results show that it is feasible to generate supercontinuum spectrum with 20 d B-bandwidth covering from 1 550 nm to 3 420 nm by injecting 1. 95 μm picosecond pulse into silica photonic crystal fiber with appropriate dispersion. The average power of the supercontinuum spectrum can reach 56. 6 W.