Flat supercontinuum generation pumped by amplified noise-like pulses from a figure-eight erbium-doped fiber laser

• Published in: Laser physics letters Vol. 14; no. 10; pp. 105104 - 105112
• Main Authors: Hernández-Escobar, E, Bello-Jiménez, M, Pottiez, O, Ibarra-Escamilla, B, López-Estopier, R, Durán-Sánchez, M, Kuzin, E A, Andrés, M V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IOP Publishing 01.10.2017
• Subjects: figure-eight fiber laser; mode-locked fiber laser; noise-like pulses; nonlinear effects; supercontinuum generation
• ISSN: 1612-2011; 1612-202X
• DOI: 10.1088/1612-202X/aa829c

The conditions to obtain noise-like pulses (NLPs) from a figure-eight fiber laser (F8L) and their application for supercontinuum (SC) generation in the anomalous dispersion regime are reported. The F8L is designed to remove the undesired low-intensity background radiation from pulse emission, generating NLPs with a 3 dB spectral bandwidth of 17.43 nm at the fundamental repetition frequency of 0.8 MHz. After amplification, NLPs reach a maximum average power of 9.2 mW and 123.32 nm spectral bandwidth. By controlling the amplifier pump power, flat SC generation is demonstrated through both a 800 m long spool of SMF-28 fiber and a piece of 5 m long highly nonlinear optical fiber. The results demonstrate a satisfactory flatness of ~3 dB over a bandwidth of ~1000 nm in the range from 1261 to 2261 nm, achieving to the best of our knowledge, one of the flattest SC generated from noise-like pulses.