We experimentally show octave-spanning supercontinuum generation in a non-stoichiometric silicon-rich nitride waveguide when pumped by femtosecond pulses from an erbium fiber laser. The pulse energy and bandwidth are comparable to results achieved in stoichiometric silicon nitride waveguides, but our material platform is simpler to manufacture. We also observe wave-breaking supercontinuum generation by using orthogonal pumping in the same waveguide. Additional analysis reveals that the waveguide height is a powerful tuning parameter for generating mid-infrared dispersive waves while keeping the pump in the telecom band.
We generate mode-locked picosecond pulses near 1110 nm by spectrally slicing and reamplifying an octave-spanning supercontinuum source pumped at 1550 nm. The 1110 nm pulses are near transform-limited, with 1.7 ps duration over their 1.2 nm bandwidth, and exhibit high interpulse coherence. Both the supercontinuum source and the pulse synthesis system are implemented completely in fiber. The versatile source construction suggests that pulse synthesis from sliced supercontinuum may be a useful technique across the 1000 - 2000 nm wavelength range.
We demonstrate the generation of a low-noise, octave-spanning mid-infrared supercontinuum from 1700 to 4800 nm by injecting femtosecond pulses into the normal dispersion regime of a multimode step-index chalcogenide fiber with 100 $μ$m core diameter. We conduct a systematic study of the intensity noise across the supercontinuum spectrum and show that the initial fluctuations of the pump laser are at most amplified by a factor of three. We also perform a comparison with the noise characteristics of an octave-spanning supercontinuum generated in the anomalous dispersion regime of a multimode flu…
We demonstrate coherent supercontinuum generation (SCG) in a monolithically integrated lithium-niobate waveguide, under the presence of second- and third-order nonlinear effects. We achieve more than two octaves of optical bandwidth in a 0.5-cm-long waveguide with 100-picojoule-level pulses. Dispersion engineering of the waveguide allows for spectral overlap between the SCG and the second harmonic which enables direct detection of the carrier-envelope offset frequency fCEO using a single waveguide. We measure the fCEO of our femtosecond pump source with a 30-dB signal-to-noise ratio.
Dramatic advances in supercontinuum generation have been made recently using photonic crystal fibers, but it is quite challenging to obtain an octave-spanning supercontinuum on a chip, partially because of strong dispersion in high-index-contrast nonlinear integrated waveguides. We show by simulation that extremely flat and low dispersion can be achieved in silicon nitride slot waveguides over a wavelength band of 500 nm. Different from previously reported supercontinua that were generated either by higher-order soliton fission in anomalous dispersion regime or by self phase modulation in norm…
In supercontinuum generation, various propa- gation effects combine to produce a dramatic spec- tral broadening of intense ultrashort optical pulses with far reaching possibilities. Different applications place highly divergent and challenging demands on source characteristics such as spectral coverage from the ultraviolet (UV) across the visible (VIS) to the near-infrared (NIR), and into the mid-infrared (MIR). Shot-to-shot repeatability, high spectral energy density, an absence of complicated or non-deterministic pulse splitting are also essential for many applications. Here we present an "a…
The generation of a two-octave supercontinuum from the visible to mid-infrared (700 - 2800 nm) in a non-silica graded-index multimode fiber is reported. The fiber design is based on a nanostructured core comprised of two types of drawn lead-bismuth-gallate glass rods with different refractive indices. This structure yields an effective parabolic index profile, an extended transmission window, and ten times increased nonlinearity when compared to silica fibers. Using femtosecond pulse pumping at wavelengths in both normal and anomalous dispersion regimes, a detailed study is carried out into th…
Bright and broadband coherent mid-IR radiation is important for exciting and probing molecular vibrations. Using cascaded nonlinearities in conventional quadratic nonlinear crystal like lithium niobate, self-defocusing near-IR solitons have been demonstrated that led to very broadband supercontinuum generation in the visible, near-IR and short-wavelength mid-IR. Here we conduct an experiment where a mid-IR crystal pumped in the mid-IR gives multiple-octave spanning supercontinua. The crystal is cut for noncritical interaction, so the three-wave mixing of a single mid-IR femtosecond pump source…
We demonstrate mid-infrared (mid-IR) supercontinuum generation (SCG) with instantaneous bandwidth from 2.2 to 5 μm at 40 dB below the peak, covering the wavelength range desirable for molecular spectroscopy and numerous other applications. The SCG occurs in a tapered As2S3 fiber prepared by in-situ tapering and is pumped by femtosecond pulses from the subharmonic of a mode-locked Er-doped fiber laser. Interference with a narrow linewidth c.w. laser verifies that the coherence properties of the near-IR frequency comb have been preserved through these cascaded nonlinear processes. With this appr…
We use dispersive Fourier transformation to measure shot-to-shot spectral instabilities in femtosecond supercontinuum generation. We study both the onset phase of supercontinuum generation with distinct dispersive wave generation, as well as a highly-unstable supercontinuum regime spanning an octave in bandwidth. Wavelength correlation maps allow interactions between separated spectral components to be identified, even when such interactions are not apparent in shot-to-shot or average measurements. Experimental results are interpreted using numerical simulations. Our results show the clear adv…
In Terahertz (THz) technology, one of the long-standing challenges has been the formation of intense pulses covering the hard-to-access frequency range of 1-15 THz (so-called THz gap). This frequency band, lying between the electronically (<1 THz) and optically (>15 THz) accessible spectrum hosts a series of important collective modes and molecular fingerprints which cannot be fully accessed by present THz sources. While present high-energy THz sources are limited to 0.1-4 THz the accessibility to the entire THz gap with intense THz pulses would substantially broaden THz applications like live…
This paper presents a three layer index guided lead silicate (SF57) photonic crystal fiber which simultaneously promises to yield large effective optical nonlinear coefficient and low anomalous dispersion that makes it suitable for supercontinuum generation. At an operating wavelength 1550 nm, the typical optimized value of anomalous dispersion and effective nonlinear coefficient turns out to be ~4 ps/km/nm and ~1078 W^(-1) km^(-1), respectively. Through numerical simulation it is realized that the designed fiber promises to exhibit three octave spanning supercontinuum from 900 to 7200 nm by u…
We demonstrate an octave-spanning frequency comb with a spectrum covering wavelengths from 1,540 nm up to 3,200 nm. The supercontinuum is generated by pumping a 1-cm long dispersion engineered silicon wire waveguide by 70 fs pulses with an energy of merely 15 pJ. We confirm the phase coherence of the output spectrum by beating the supercontinuum with narrow bandwidth CW lasers. We show that the experimental results are in agreement with numerical simulations.
Ultrafast supercontinuum generation in gas-filled waveguides is one enabling technology for many intriguing application ranging from attosecond metrology towards biophotonics, with the amount of spectral broadening crucially depending on the pulse dispersion of the propagating mode. Here we show that the structural resonances in gas-filled anti-resonant hollow core optical fiber provide an additional degree of freedom in dispersion engineering, allowing for the generation of more than three octaves of broadband light ranging deep UV wavelength towards the near infrared.Our observation relies o…
We demonstrate a simple module for octave spanning continuous-wave supercontinuum generation using standard telecom fiber. This module can accept any high power Ytterbium-doped fiber laser as input. The input light is transferred into the anomalous dispersion region of the telecom fiber through a cascade of Raman shifts. A recently proposed Raman laser architecture with distributed feedback efficiently performs these Raman conversions. A spectrum spanning over 1000nm(>1 octave) from 880-1900nm is demonstrated. The average power from the supercontinuum is ~34W with a high conversion efficiency …
The field of attosecond science was first enabled by nonlinear compression of intense laser pulses to a duration below two optical cycles. Twenty years later, creating such short pulses still requires state-of-the-art few-cycle laser amplifiers to most efficiently exploit 'instantaneous' optical nonlinearities in noble gases for spectral broadening and parametric frequency conversion. Here, we show that nonlinear compression can in fact be much more efficient when driven in molecular gases by pulses substantially longer than a few cycles, due to enhanced optical nonlinearity associated with ro…
Tapered and dispersion managed (DM) silicon nanophotonic waveguides are investigated for the generation of optimal ultra broadband supercontinuum (SC). DM waveguides are structures showing a longitudinally dependent group velocity dispersion that results from the variation of the waveguide width with the propagation distance. For the generation of optimal SC, a genetic algorithm has been used to find the best dispersion map. This allows for the generation of highly coherent supercontinuums that span over 1.14 octaves from 1300 nm to 2860 nm and 1.25 octaves from 1200 nm to 2870 nm at -20 dB le…
We study the suppression of noise degradation in high-power soliton-induced supercontinuum generation under the influence of plasma contributions in metallic dielectric-coated hollow waveguides. The high coherence of the supercontinuum is related to the coherent seed components formed by the abruptly rising plasma density. We predict the generation of highly coherent supercontinua with two-octave broad spectra and spectral power densities in the range ofMW/nm in such waveguides.
We demonstrate a frequency comb spanning an octave via the parametric process of cascaded four-wave mixing in a monolithic, high-Q silicon nitride microring resonator. The comb is generated from a single-frequency pump laser at 1562 nm and spans 128 THz with a spacing of 226 GHz, which can be tuned slightly with the pump power. In addition, we investigate the RF-noise characteristics of the parametric comb and find that the comb can operate in a low-noise state with a 30-dB reduction in noise as the pump frequency is tuned into the cavity resonance.
In this Letter we theoretically study a novel approach for soliton-induced supercontinuum generation based on the application of metallic dielectric-coated hollow waveguides. Low loss of such waveguides permits the use of smaller diameters with enhanced dispersion control and enables the generation of two-octave-broad spectra with unprecedentedly high spectral peak power densities up to five orders of magnitude larger than in standard PCFs with high coherence. We also predict that high-power supercontinua in the vacuum ultraviolet can be generated in such waveguides.
On-chip ultraviolet to infrared (UV-IR) spectrum frequency metrology is of crucial importance as a characterization tool for fundamental studies on quantum physics, chemistry, and biology. Due to the strong material dispersion, traditional techniques fail to demonstrate the device that can be applied to generate coherent broadband spectrum that covers the full UV-IR wavelengths. In this work, we explore several novel techniques for supercontinuum generation covering near-UV to near-IR spectrum using AlN micro-photonic waveguides, which is essential for frequency metrology applications: First, …
We report supercontinuum generation by launching femtosecond Yb fiber laser pulses into a tapered single-mode fiber of 3 um core diameter. A spectrum of more than one octave, from 550 to 1400 nm, has been obtained with an output power of 1.3 W at a repetition rate of 250 MHz, corresponding to a coupling efficiency of up to 60%. By using a typical f-2f interferometer, the carrier envelope offset frequency was measured and found to have a signal-to-noise ratio of nearly 30 dB.
Blue-enhanced, broadband supercontinuum generation in a 50 um core fluorine-doped graded-index multimode fiber is demonstrated by pumping with a 1064 nm picosecond source. Multi-octave supercontinuum spectrum extending from ~400 nm to 2,400 nm is achieved in a relatively short fiber. The measured spectrum and multimode nonlinear properties are compared to those of a germanium-doped graded-index multimode fiber. It is shown that engineering the glass composition and thus its chromatic dispersion and absorption characteristics, provides a novel and effective approach to further controlling the n…
We demonstrate a novel approach to producing coherent, directional supercontinuum via cascaded dispersive wave generation. By pumping in the normal group-velocity dispersion regime, pulse compression of the first dispersive wave results in the generation of a second dispersive wave, resulting in an octave-spanning supercontinuum generated primarily to one side of the pump spectrum. We theoretically investigate the dynamics and show that the generated spectrum is highly coherent. We experimentally confirm this dynamical behavior and the coherence properties in silicon nitride waveguides by perf…
Supercontinuum generation in optical fibers is one of the most dramatic nonlinear effects discovered, allowing short pulses to be converted into multi-octave spanning coherent spectra. However, generating supercontinua that are both coherent and broadband requires pulses that are simultaneously ultrashort with high peak power. This results in a reducing efficiency with increasing pulse repetition rate, that has hindered supercontinua at microwave line spacing, i.e. 10s of GHz. Soliton microcombs by contrast, can generate octave-spanning spectra, but with good conversion efficiency only at vast…
Graded-index multimode fibers can handle high average powers and feature unique nonlinear dynamics due to spatio-temporal evolution of the light inside. We report on generation of octave-spanning spectrally flat supercontinua in graded-index multimode fibers using a compact, ytterbium-doped all-fiber laser system. Supercontinua with output powers as high as $\sim$4 W and 2 MHz repetition rate obtained with more than 1 $μ$m spectral bandwidth. Evolution of supercontinuum is investigated by studying the effect of launch power, repetition rate, fiber length and core size. Numerical simulations ar…
Tapered and dispersion managed (DM) silicon nanophotonic waveguides are investigated for the generation of optimal ultra broadband supercontinuum (SC). DM waveguides are structures showing a longitudinally dependent group velocity dispersion that results from the variation of the waveguide width with the propagation distance. For the generation of optimal SC, a genetic algorithm has been used to find the best dispersion map. This allows for the generation of highly coherent supercontinuums that span over 1.14 octaves from 1300 nm to 2860 nm and 1.25 octaves from 1200 nm to 2870 nm at -20 dB le…
We utilize silicon-nitride waveguides to self-reference a telecom-wavelength fiber frequency comb through supercontinuum generation, using 11.3 mW of optical power incident on the chip. This is approximately ten times lower than conventional approaches using nonlinear fibers and is enabled by low-loss (<2 dB) input coupling and the high nonlinearity of silicon nitride, which can provide two octaves of spectral broadening with incident energies of only 110 pJ. Following supercontinuum generation, self-referencing is accomplished by mixing 780-nm dispersive-wave light with the frequency-doubled …
We demonstrate that time-domain ptychography, a recently introduced ultrafast pulse reconstruction modality, has properties ideally suited for the temporal characterization of complex light pulses with large time-bandwidth products as it achieves temporal resolution on the scale of a single optical cycle using long probe pulses, low sampling rates, and an extremely fast and robust algorithm. In comparison to existing techniques, ptychography minimizes the data to be recorded and processed, and drastically reduces the computational time of the reconstruction. Experimentally we measure the tempo…
Supercontinuum generation using chip-integrated photonic waveguides is a powerful approach for spectrally broadening pulsed laser sources with very low pulse energies and compact form factors. When pumped with a mode-locked laser frequency comb, these waveguides can coherently expand the comb spectrum to more than an octave in bandwidth to enable self-referenced stabilization. However, for applications in frequency metrology and precision spectroscopy, it is desirable to not only support self-referencing, but also to generate low-noise combs with customizable broadband spectra. In this work, w…
Supercontinuum generation is an extensively studied and arguably the most important and all-encompassing nonlinear phenomenon. Yet, we do not have a good control over all the signals generated in this process. Usually a large part of an octave spanning spectrum has orders of magnitude too much weaker signal than the peak to be useful for any application. In this work we show strong signal generation within a supercontinuum using a silicon Bragg grating waveguide. We show up to 23 dB of signal enhancement over a 10 nm full-width-at-half-maximum bandwidth at the Bragg resonance in the telecom wi…
We report on the generation of a three-octave-wide supercontinuum extending from the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) to the near-infrared, spanning at least 113 to 1000 nm (i.e., 11 to 1.2 eV), in He-filled hollow-core kagome-style photonic crystal fiber. Numerical simulations confirm that the main mechanism is a novel and previously undiscovered interaction between dispersive-wave emission and plasma-induced blueshifted soliton recompression around the fiber zero dispersion frequency. The VUV part of the supercontinuum, which modeling shows to be coherent and possess a simple phase structure, has su…
We theoretically study a novel approach for soliton-induced high-power supercontinuum generation by using kagome lattice HC-PCFs filled with a noble gas. Anomalous dispersion and broad-band low loss of these fibers enable the generation of two-octave broad spectra by fs pulses, with high coherence and high spectral peak power densities up to five orders of magnitude larger than in standard PCFs. In addition, up to 20 percents of the output radiation energy forms a narrow UV/VUV band, which can be tuned by contolling the pressure in the range from 350 nm to 120 nm. In the temporal domain this c…
Frequency microcombs, successors to mode-locked laser and fiber combs, enable miniature rulers of light for applications including precision metrology, molecular fingerprinting, and exoplanet discoveries. To enable the frequency ruling function, microcombs must be stabilized by locking their carrier-envelop offset frequency. So far, the microcomb stabilization remains compounded by the elaborate optics external to the chip, thus evading its scaling benefit. To address this challenge, here we demonstrate a nanophotonic chip solution based on aluminum nitride thin films, which simultaneously off…
Using aluminum-nitride photonic-chip waveguides, we generate optical-frequency-comb supercontinuum spanning from 500 nm to 4000 nm with a 0.8 nJ seed pulse, and show that the spectrum can be tailored by changing the waveguide geometry. Since aluminum nitride exhibits both quadratic and cubic nonlinearities, the spectra feature simultaneous contributions from numerous nonlinear mechanisms: supercontinuum generation, difference-frequency generation, second-harmonic generation, and third-harmonic generation. As one application of integrating multiple nonlinear processes, we measure and stabilize …
Directly accessing the middle infrared, the molecular functional group spectral region, via supercontinuum generation processes based on turn-key fiber lasers offers the undeniable advantage of simplicity and robustness. Recently, the assessment of the coherence of the mid-IR dispersive wave in silicon nitride waveguides, pumped at telecom wavelength, established an important first step towards mid-IR frequency comb generation based on such compact systems. Yet, the spectral reach and efficiency still fall short for practical implementation. Here, we experimentally demonstrate for the first ti…
Compact chip-scale comb sources are of significant interest for many practical applications. Here, we experimentally study the generation of supercontinuum (SC) in an axially varying integrated waveguide. We show that the local tuning of the dispersion enables the continuous blue shift of dispersive waves thanks to their trapping by the strongly compressed pump pulse. This mechanism provides new insight into supercontinuum generation in a dispersion varying integrated waveguide. Pumped close to 2.2 $μ$m in the femtosecond regime and at a pulse energy of $\sim$ 4 pJ, the output spectrum extends…
There are several mechanisms by which the frequency spectrum of a laser broadens when it propagates at near-relativistic-intensity in tenuous plasma. Focusing on one dimensional effects, we identify two strong optical nonlinearities, namely, four-wave mixing (FWM) and forward Raman scattering (FRS), for creating octave-wide spectra. FWM dominates the interaction when the laser pulse is short and intense; Its combination with phase modulation produces a symmetrically broadened supercontinuum. FRS dominates when the laser pulse is long and relatively weak; It broadens the laser spectrum mainly t…
Segment-chirped periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides for broadband supercontinuum generation
National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学）；Sichuan University（四川大学）；A ∗ STAR Quantum Innovation Centre (Q.InC), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A ∗ STAR)（A*STAR量子创新中心（Q.InC），科学技术研究局（A*STAR））；Nanyang Technological University（南洋理工大学）
Cascaded nonlinearities have attracted much interest, but ultrafast applications have been seriously hampered by the simultaneous requirements of being near phase-matching and having ultrafast femtosecond response times. Here we show that in strongly phase-mismatched nonlinear frequency conversion crystals the pump pulse can experience a large and extremely broadband self-defocusing cascaded Kerr-like nonlinearity. The large cascaded nonlinearity is ensured through interaction with the largest quadratic tensor element in the crystal, and the strong phase-mismatch ensures an ultrafast nonlinear…
Efficient supercontinuum generation (SCG) requires excitation of solitons at the pump laser wavelength. Quadratic nonlinear waveguides may support an effective self-defocusing nonlinearity so solitons can directly be generated at common ultrafast laser wavelengths without any waveguide dispersion engineering. We here experimentally demonstrate efficient SCG in a standard lithium niobate (LN) waveguide without using quasi-phase matching (QPM). By using femtosecond pumps with wavelengths in the $1.25-1.5 μ\rm m$ range, where LN has normal dispersion and thus supports self-defocusing solitons, oc…
Although supercontinuum sources are readily available for the visible and near infrared, and recently also for the mid-IR, many areas of biology, chemistry and physics would benefit greatly from the availability of compact, stable and spectrally bright deep ultraviolet (DUV) and vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) supercontinuum sources. Such sources have however not yet been developed. Here we report the generation of a bright supercontinuum, spanning more than three octaves from 124 nm to beyond 1200 nm, in hydrogen-filled kagomé-style hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (kagomé-PCF). Few-μJ, 30 fs pump…
Fully integrated supercontinuum sources on-chip are critical to enabling applications such as portable and mechanically-stable medical imaging devices, chemical sensing and LiDAR. However, the low-efficiency of current supercontinuum generation schemes prevent full on-chip integration. In this letter, we present a scheme where the input energy requirements for integrated supercontinuum generation is drastically lowered by orders of magnitude, for bandwidth generation of the order of 500 to 1000 nm. Through sign-alternating the dispersion in a CMOS compatible silicon nitride waveguide, we achie…
High-brightness sources of coherent and few-cycle-duration light waveforms with spectral coverage from the UV to the THz would offer unprecedented versatility and opportunities for a spectacular range of applications from bio-chemical sensing, to time-resolved and nonlinear spectroscopy, to attosecond light-wave electronics. Combinations of various sources with frequency conversion and supercontinuum generation can provide relatively large spectral coverage, but many applications require much broader spectral range and low-jitter synchronization for time-domain measurements. Here, we present a…
Dissipative solitons formed in Kerr microresonators may enable chip-scale frequency combs for precision optical metrology. Here we explore the creation of an octave-spanning, 15-GHz repetition-rate microcomb suitable for both f-2f self-referencing and optical-frequency comparisons across the near infrared. This is achieved through a simple and reliable approach to deterministically generate, and subsequently frequency stabilize, soliton pulse trains in a silica-disk resonator. Efficient silicon-nitride waveguides provide a supercontinuum spanning 700 to 2100 nm, enabling both offset-frequency …
A traditional view on solitons in optical fibers as robust particle-like structures suited for informa- tion transmission has been significantly altered and broadened over the past decade, when solitons have been found to play the major role in generation of octave broad supercontinuum spectra in photonic-crystal and other types of optical fibers. This remarkable spectral broadening is achieved through complex processes of dispersive radiation being scattered from, emitted and transformed by solitons. Thus solitons have emerged as the major players in nonlinear frequency conversion in optical …
Supercontinuum generation is a highly nonlinear process that exhibits unstable and chaotic characteristics when developing from long pump pulses injected into the anomalous dispersion regime of an optical fiber. A particular feature associated with this regime is the long-tailed "rogue wave"-like statistics of the spectral intensity on the long wavelength edge of the supercontinuum, linked to the generation of a small number of "rogue solitons" with extreme red-shifts. Here, we apply machine learning to analyze the characteristics of these solitons at the edge of the supercontinuum spectrum, a…
