Nonlinear Optics in Guided Geometries - Abstract

Herrmann, Joachim

High-power soliton-induced supercontinuum generation in metal-dielectric hollow waveguides

Many applications require light sources, which share with a laser its unidirectional and coherent properties but have a broad spectral range like a lamp. A coherent white-light source was achieved by the application of photonic crystal fibers (PCF). Supercontinuum generation in PCFs is based on a spectral broadening mechanism which is connected with the soliton dynamics in the anomalous dispersion region of the PCFs. Unfortunately, the small radii in PCFs and material damage limit severely the maximum spectral peak power densities to tens of W/nm. In the talk we theoretically study a novel approach for high-power supercontinuum generation by using metal-dielectric hollow waveguides, which allow anomalous dispersion in the visible. As will be shown, such waveguides have small loss at diameters in the range of 20 to 80 μm and anomalous dispersion at optical frequencies as required for the soliton-induced mechanism of supercontiunuum generation. We show that in such wave guides two-octave broad super continua can be generated with five orders of magnitude higher spectral peak power density than in standard PCFs.