title: Thulium pumped mid-infrared 0.9-9μm supercontinuum generation in concatenated fluoride and chalcogenide glass fibers.
abstract: We theoretically demonstrate a novel approach for generating Mid-InfraRed SuperContinuum (MIR SC) by using concatenated fluoride and chalcogenide glass fibers pumped with a standard pulsed Thulium (Tm) laser (T(FWHM)=3.5ps, P0=20kW, ν(R)=30MHz, and P(avg)=2W). The fluoride fiber SC is generated in 10m of ZBLAN spanning the 0.9-4.1μm SC at the -30dB level. The ZBLAN fiber SC is then coupled into 10cm of As2Se3 chalcogenide Microstructured Optical Fiber (MOF) designed to have a zero-dispersion wavelength (λ(ZDW)) significantly below the 4.1μm InfraRed (IR) edge of the ZBLAN fiber SC, here 3.55μm. This allows the MIR solitons in the ZBLAN fiber SC to couple into anomalous dispersion in the chalcogenide fiber and further redshift out to the fiber loss edge at around 9μm. The final 0.9-9μm SC covers over 3 octaves in the MIR with around 15mW of power converted into the 6-9μm range.
authors.forename: Irnis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kubat
authors.forename: Christian Rosenberg
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.forename: Uffe Visbech
authors.initials: UV
authors.lastname: Møller
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Seddon
authors.forename: Trevor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Benson
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Brilland
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Méchin
authors.forename: Peter M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Moselund
authors.forename: Ole
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Bang