Abstract

Supercontinuum (SC) pulse generation, or white pulse generation is a phenomenon in which the pump pulse spectrum is broadened over a continuous range of more than 100 nm while maintaining its pulse nature in various nonlinear materials. The phenomenon is explained as the combined effect of various third-order nonlinearities such as self-phase modulation (SPM), cross-phase modulation (XPM), stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), and parametric four-wave mixing (FWM).^1,2 Although the study of SC generation started more than 20 years ago,¹ a research effort to apply SC pulses to ultrafast communication and optical networks has begun rather recently. Error-free, SC pulses at GHz repetition rates are generated over the 200 nm spectrum range in an optical fiber with a few watts of pump power. Because of its wide continuous spectrum nature, the potential applications include multiwavelength³ or tunable femtosecond transform-limited pulse generation⁴ and self-optical frequency conversion without the use of a pump.⁵

© 1995 IEEE