Four-wave mixing and octave-spanning supercontinuum generation in a small core hydrogenated amorphous silicon fiber pumped in the mid-infrared

An octave-spanning supercontinuum is generated in a hydrogenated amorphous silicon core fiber when pumped in the mid-infrared regime. The broadband wavelength conversion which extends from the edge of the telecommunications band into the mid-infrared (1.64-3.37 mu m) is generated by four-wave mixing (FWM) and subsequent pulse break-up, facilitated by the high material nonlinear figure of merit and the anomalous dispersion of the relatively small 1.7 mu m diameter core fiber. The FWM sidebands and corresponding supercontinuum can be tuned through the pump parameters, and show good agreement with the predicted phase-matching curves for the fiber. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America