Coherent supercontinuum generation in tellurite glass regular lattice photonic crystal fibers

We report on the design, fabrication, and experimental characterization of highly nonlinear tellurite glass photonic crystal fibers with engineered normal dispersion characteristics for coherent supercontinuum generation. Effectively single-mode air-hole lattice fibers with measured all-normal dispersion profiles as flat as −10 to −50  ps/mn/km over 1500–2400 nm wavelengths are developed and investigated. Supercontinuum spectra are measured for these fibers, with a spectral width covering 1100–2600 nm wavelengths under pumping with a robust fixed-wavelength erbium-fiber-based femtosecond laser, delivering 90 fs pulses, centered at 1560 nm with peak power below 40 kW. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first engineered microstructured fiber, which due to its high nonlinearity, enables a self-phase modulation and optical-wave-breaking-based supercontinuum pumped with a turn-key, 40 kW femtosecond laser at spectral widths obtainable with previous all-normal dispersion fiber designs only under pumping with systems delivering peak power in the megawatt range.