title: Mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in tapered chalcogenide fiber for producing octave-spanning frequency comb around 3 μm.
abstract: 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 As(2)S(3) 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 approach stable broad mid-IR frequency combs can be derived from commercially available near-IR frequency combs without an extra stabilization mechanism.
authors.affiliation: EL Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA. marandi@stanford.edu
authors.forename: Alireza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marandi
authors.forename: Charles W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Rudy
authors.forename: Victor G
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Plotnichenko
authors.forename: Evgeny M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Dianov
authors.forename: Konstantin L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Vodopyanov
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Byer