Demonstration of almost octave-spanning cascaded four-wave mixing in optical microfibers

We demonstrate almost octave-spanning cascaded four-wave mixing (CFWM) in optical microfibers. Pumped by two synchronized picosecond lasers at about 850 nm, microfibers with a length of 10–20 cm can generate CFWM spanning from a few hundred nanometers to almost one octave, depending on the diameter of the microfibers and the detuning between the two pumps. CFWM in microfibers, which has the advantages of easy fabrication, highly efficient coupling, relatively short length, and easy integration with fiber systems, can be used for applications in widely tunable multiline phase-sensitive amplification, multiwavelength coherent sources, and ultrashort pulse synthesis.