Abstract

The generation of supercontinuum (SC) spectra has been experimentally demonstrated in both photonic crystal fibers (PCF) and tapered optical fibers.^1,2 Both fiber types possess zero dispersion wavelengths (ZDW) around 800 nm, and enhanced nonlinearity due to the confinement of the fundamental fiber mode within a 1-3 μm diameter core. Despite the large number of experimental results, however, there has been only limited modelling of SC generation.^3,4 In this paper, we present numerical simulations to identify the physical origin of key spectral features reported in experiments and to investigate the effect of input noise on the SC spectral coherence.

© 2002 Optical Society of America