Multiwatt octave-spanning supercontinuum generation in multicore photonic-crystal fiber

Abstract

High-power supercontinuum spanning over more than an octave was generated using a high power femtosecond fiber laser amplifier and a multicore nonlinear photonic crystal fiber (PCF). Long multicore PCFs (as long as 20 m in our experiments) are shown to enable supercontinuum generation in an isolated fundamental supermode, with the manifold of other PCF modes suppressed due to the strong evanescent fields coupling between the cores, providing a robust 5.4 W coherent supercontinuum output with a high spatial and spectral quality within the range of wavelengths from 500 to 1700 nm.