Power dependence of supercontinuum noise in uniform and tapered PCFs

Abstract

Abstract:We experimentally investigate the noise properties of picosecond supercontinuum spectra generated at different power levels in uniform and tapered photonic crystal fibers. We show that the noise at the spectral edges of the generated supercontinuum is at a constant level independent on the pump power in both tapered and uniform fibers. At high input power the spectral bandwidth is limited by the infrared loss edge, this however has no effect on the noise properties.

Noise characterization of broadband fiber Cherenkov radiation as a visible-wavelength source for optical coherence tomography and two-photon fluorescence microscopy

“…The high-frequency RIN of the signal has been reproducibly measured within ± 2 dB from 1 MHz to the pump laser repetition rate f (carrier frequency) [ Fig. 1(c)] [19,23], corresponding to the amplified quantum noise [4,25] that may fundamentally limit the subsequent OCT and TPF applications. In contrast, the low-frequency (<1 MHz) RIN caused by technical laser noise can be removed by balanced detection (OCT) and intensity-modulation-lock-in-detection (TPF).…”

“…It is rather surprising that CRHigh-Q induced by a RIN-undetectable 1040-nm solid-state laser is 9.1 dB noisier in σ than CR-Calmar induced by a RIN-detectable fiber laser at a longer emitting wavelength of 1550 nm. In a fixed pump/fiber setup, nonlinearly converted components with larger wavelength offsets from the pump are noisier than those with smaller offsets [23]. To understand this discrepancy, we calculate the soliton order N of the CR or SC generation, according to the dispersion constant (β 2 ) and nonlinear coefficient (γ) of the photonic crystal fiber (Table 1) [4].…”

“…1(a)]. To enable RIN comparison between the CR sources and the commercial SC sources employed in OCT applications [2,3,[20][21][22], we acquired a prototype SC-laser (460-2000 nm) from a startup company that relies on the similar SC generation by modelocked ~10 ps pulses (Table 1), and presumably has a similar RIN property as the commercial SC sources [4,23]. Using proper optics, we shape the CR source (CR-High-Q) and SC source (SC-Visible) to spectrally approximate the CR-Calmar source (Table 1) [ Fig.…”

Power dependence of supercontinuum noise in uniform and tapered PCFs: erratum

“…The authors regret the error, but emphasize that it does not affect any of the conclusions presented in [1].…”

The role of phase coherence in seeded supercontinuum generation

“…The noise properties of supercontinuum (SC) generation have attracted a lot of attention due to a large application demand for low noise SC sources [1,2]. Commercial SC sources are typically based on high-power picosecond or nanosecond pump lasers.…”