title: Dispersion-shifted all-solid high index-contrast microstructured optical fiber for nonlinear applications at 1.55 microm.
abstract: We report the fabrication of an all-solid highly nonlinear microstructured optical fiber. The structured preform was made by glass extrusion using two types of commercial lead silicate glasses that provide high index-contrast. Effectively single-moded guidance was observed in the fiber at 1.55 microm. The effective nonlinearity and the propagation loss at this wavelength were measured to be 120 W(-1)km(-1) and 0.8 dB/m, respectively. Numerical simulations indicate that the fiber is dispersion-shifted with a zero-dispersion-wavelength of 1475 nm and a dispersion slope of 0.16 ps/nm(2)/km respectively at 1.55 microm. These predictions are consistent with the experimentally determined dispersion of + 12.5 ps/nm/km at 1.55 microm. Tunable and efficient four-wave-mixing based wavelength conversion was demonstrated at wavelengths around 1.55 microm using a 1.5m-length of the fiber.
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. xif@orc.soton.ac.uk
authors.forename: Xian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Poletti
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Camerlingo
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Parmigiani
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Horak
authors.forename: Periklis
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Petropoulos
authors.forename: Wei H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Loh
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Richardson
mesh_terms: D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008904:Miniaturization; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D055100:Optical Fibers; D012031:Refractometry; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity