Infrared supercontinuum generation in soft-glass photonic crystal fibers pumped at 1560 nm

In this work we present results on supercontinuum (SC) generation in a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) fabricated from lead-bismuthgallium-oxide glass (PBG-08). Due to high refractive index, high nonlinearity and high transmittance, the PBG-08 glass-based fibers seem to be excellent media for broad supercontinuum generation in the infrared spectral region. In our experiment, a short-length piece of PCF (5-6 cm) is pumped by a femtosecond chirped pulse amplification (CPA) setup, which may be seeded by two different fiber-based oscillators. This compact and cost-effective system allows to generate SC spanning from 900 to 2400 nm. The paper describes in detail the fabrication process of the fiber, as well as the SC generation results. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America