Abstract

The fundamental limits to the compressibility of broadband supercontinuum spectra generated in photonic crystal fiber are examined using numerical simulations based on a stochastic extended nonlinear Schrödinger equation. An ensemble average over multiple simulations performed with random quantum noise on the input pulse and spontaneous Raman noise during propagation allows a quantitative study of the effects of pulse to pulse fluctuations on the ability to obtain few-cycle pulses after compensation of the supercontinuum spectral phase. We study the dependence of the supercontinuum compressibility on the input pulse duration, the photonic crystal fiber length, and the spectral resolution of the pulse compressor employed.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

» View Full Text: Acrobat PDF (1094 KB)

History
Original Manuscript: April 27, 2004
Revised Manuscript: May 14, 2004
Published: May 30, 2004

References

1. See, for example, the special issue of Appl. Phys. B 77, no. 2-3 (2003)
2. T. Sudmeyer, F. Brunner, E. Innerhofer, R. Paschotta, K. Furusawa, J. C. Baggett, T. M. Monro, D. J. Richardson, U. Keller, �??Nonlinear femtosecond pulse compression at high average power levels by use of a large mode-area holey fiber,�?? Opt. Lett. 28, 1951-1953 (2003).
3. G. McConnell and E. Riis, �??Ultrashort pulse compression using photonic crystal fiber,�?? Appl. Phys. B 78, 557-564 (2004). [CrossRef]
4. J. M. Dudley and S. Coen, �??The compressibility of supercontinuum spectra generated in photonic crystal fiber,�?? Proceedings of the European Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics and the European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC 2003), Europhysics Conference Abstracts 27E CL2-5-THU.
5. G. Chang, T. B. Norris, H. G. Winful, �??Optimization of supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fibers for pulse compression,�?? Opt. Lett. 28, 546-548 (2003).
6. P. D. Drummond, J. F. Corney, �??Quantum noise in optical fibers. I. Stochastic equations,�?? J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, 18, 139-152 (2001).
7. K. L. Corwin, N. R. Newbury, J. M. Dudley, S. Coen, S. A. Diddams, K. Weber, and R. S. Windeler, �??Fundamental Noise Limitations to Supercontinuum Generation in Microstructure Fiber,�?? Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 113904 (2003). [CrossRef]
8. J. Herrmann, U. Griebner, N. Zhavoronkov, A. Husakou, D. Nickel, J. C. Knight, W. J. Wadsworth, P. St. J. Russell, and G. Korn, �??Experimental Evidence for Supercontinuum Generation by Fission of Higher-Order Solitons in Photonic Fibers,�?? Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 173901 (2003). [CrossRef]
9. A. M. Weiner, �??Femtosecond pulse shaping using spatial light modulators,�?? Rev. Sci. Instrum. 71, 1929-1960 (2000). [CrossRef]
10. J. M. Dudley and S. Coen, �??Coherence properties of supercontinuum spectra generated in photonic crystal and tapered optical fibers,�?? Opt. Lett. 27, 1180-1182 (2002).
11. F. Lu and W. H. Knox, �??Generation of a broadband continuum with high spectral coherence in tapered single-mode optical fibers,�?? Opt. Express 12, 347-353 (2004), <a href= "http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?URI=OPEX-12-2-347">http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?URI=OPEX-12-2-347</a>. [CrossRef]

Citing Articles

OSA is able to provide readers links to articles that cite this paper by participating in CrossRef's Cited-By Linking service. In addition to listing OSA journal articles that cite this paper, citing articles from other participating publishers will also be listed.

Advanced Search

Recent ToC Categories (Beta)

• Oct 22 2009 : The 2009 Frontiers in Optics, Laser Science, Advances in Optical Materials, Adaptive Optics: Methods, Analysis and Applications, Computational Optical Sensing and Imaging, Femtosecond Laser Microfabrication and Signal Recovery and Synthesis conference papers are now available.
• Oct 08 2009 : See the latest ISP articles in the Applied Optics feature on Digital Holography in 3-D Imaging.
• Sep 25 2009 : Energy Express: Optics Express announces a special bi-monthly supplement dedicated to rapid developments in optics for sustainable energy.

More News

• Diamonds are a Laser's Best Friend
  Sep 18, 2009 - Tomorrow’s lasers may come with a bit of bling, thanks to a new... more
• Open Wide and Say ‘Zap’
  Aug 19, 2009 - A group of researchers in Australia and Taiwan has developed a new... more
• OSA Launches Spotlight on Optics to Highlight Research Articles in OSA Journals
  Jul 21, 2009 - The Optical Society (OSA) today announced the launch of a new... more