Design optimisation for obtaining flat,

high power supercontinuum source over

C + L band
Charu Kakkar1,2 and K. Thyagarajan1
1 Departmentof Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi-110016,
India
2 Department of Physics, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, New Delhi-110007, India

charukakkar@rediffmail.com

Abstract: We propose an optimised fiber design for obtaining spectrally

flat, high power supercontinuum (SC) source covering C+L band of
optical communication. The design is based on the principle of controlled
expansion of SC bandwidth, in the absence of soliton decay, so that a high
output power alongwith smooth spectral profile can be achieved. A detailed
optimisation has been carried out with respect to fiber dispersion profile,
pulse width and fiber length, and the physical mechanism for each case has
been emphasised. Numerical simulations show that single mode output with
> 30 dBm (± 0.5 dB) optical power is attainable over 90-nm bandwidth
with ∼ 16 pJ of input pulse energy.
© 2006 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.4370) Nonlinear optics, fibers; (060.5530) Pulse propagation and solitons

References and links

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1415–1417 (2000).
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generation in highly nonlinear hybrid fiber,” Opt. Express 12, 317–3324 2004.
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into continuum radiation in microstructured fibers,” Opt. Express 10, 1083–1098 2002.
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nonlinearity and their applications,” IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum. Electron., 5, 1385–1391 1999.
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generated in a dispersion decreasing fibre with convex dispersion profile,” Electron. Lett. 33, 1806–1808 (1997).
7. Kunihiko Mori, Hidehiko Takara, and Satoki Kawanishi, “Analysis and design of supercontinuum pulse genera-
tion in a single-mode optical fiber,” J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 18, 1780–1792 (2001).
8. H. Takara, T. Ohara, K. Mori, K. Sato, E. Yamada, Y. Inoue, T. Shibata, M. Abe, T. Morioka and K-I. Sato, “More
than 1000 channel optical frequency chain generation from single supercontinuum source with 12.5GHz channel
spacing,” Electron. Lett. 36, 2089–2090 (2000).
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Lightwave Technol., 6, 1285–1291 1988.
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optical fibers,” Opt. Express 12, 124–135 2003.

#71500 - $15.00 USD Received 31 May 2006; revised 30 August 2006; accepted 20 September 2006
(C) 2006 OSA 30 October 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 22 / OPTICS EXPRESS 10292
1. Introduction
Over the last decade, supercontinuum (SC) generation has become a very popular technique to
obtain broadband optical sources over any desirable wavelength band. Such broadband sources,
covering octaves of bandwidth, find applications in optical coherence tomography, sensing,
spectroscopy and DWDM sources for optical communication. Much of the research in the field
of SC generation has been focused on extending its bandwidth by dispersion tailoring in various
fiber designs including photonic crystal fibers [1], tapered air-clad fibers [2] and highly nonlin-
ear dispersion shifted fibers [3]. For applications involving ultra-wide bandwidths (in excess of
1000 nm), photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) have an edge over conventional fibers because of their
small effective areas (∼ 3-4 µ m2 ) and the possibility of shifting the zero dispersion wavelength
(ZDW) to wavelengths as short as the visible range. SC spectrum with typical bandwidth of
800-1000 nm having 15-20 dB power variation can be easily generated using high power (kilo-
Watt) femtosecond pulses in standard PCFs [4].
Dispersion-flattened, conventional highly nonlinear fibers present another class of fibers used
for SC generation [5]. Very flat dispersion spectra and effective areas of the order of 10-20 µ m2
can be obtained in these fibers, leading to SC bandwidths in excess of ∼ 300 nm. Design sim-
plicity of such fibers alongwith low splice loss (< 0.02 dB) with conventional transmission
fibers make them potential candidate for making SC based devices for optical communication
systems. One such application is DWDM sources, in which one would prefer to have high power
supercontinuum over a narrow bandwidth (∼ 100 nm) alongwith good spectral flatness (< 1
dB power variation). Mori et al [6, 7, 8] have shown that a dispersion decreasing, dispersion
flattened fiber with a convex dispersion profile can provide SC spectrum with < 1 dB power
variation over two wavelength bands (75 nm each) on either side of the pump pulse wavelength
(1550 nm). However, the problem with this design is that there is a sharp peak at the pump
wavelength in the SC spectrum, and most of the pump pulse energy is stored in this sharp peak.
As a result, the spectrally flat region is quite low in power (∼ -20 dBm). This sharp peak is
typical of most of the supercontinuum spectra, and it is a manifestation of SPM effect during
higher order soliton compression. In this paper we propose that a careful choice of dispersion
profile, the input pump pulse width and fiber length can prevent this sharp spectral peak and
lead to a more even distribution of pump power among the generated wavelengths. We present a
design based on conventional dispersion flattened fiber, for obtaining high power, flat supercon-
tinuum in the wavelength bands that are of utmost interest in optical communication systems.
Numerical simulations show that single mode output with > 30 dBm (± 0.5 dB) optical power
is attainable over 90-nm bandwidth with ∼ 16 pJ of input pulse energy.

2. Numerical simulation of nonlinear pulse propagation

Pulse propagation in a single-mode fiber is governed by the following equation [9]:
Z ∞
∂A α 6
βm ∂ m A i ∂
   ′
′ 2
+ A+ ∑
′ 

= iγ 1 + A(z,t) R(t ) A(z,t − t ) dt (1)
∂z 2 m=1 m! ∂ t
m ω0 ∂ t −∞

Here A(z,t) is the slowly varying amplitude of the pulse, α is the background attenuation and
n 2 ω0
γ is the nonlinear parameter of the fiber defined as γ = cA ef f
. n2 is the nonlinear coefficient
of the fiber, ω0 is the center frequency of the pulse, c is the velocity of light in free space and
Ae f f is the effective area of nonlinear interaction. βm are the coefficients of Taylor series ex-
pansion of β (ω ) about the carrier frequency ω0 and R(t) is the Raman response function which
includes both the electronic and vibrational contributions. The various terms in the above equa-
tion incorporate the effects of dispersion, self phase modulation, self steepening, cross phase
modulation, four wave mixing and Raman scattering. Eqn. 1 is valid only under the slowly

#71500 - $15.00 USD Received 31 May 2006; revised 30 August 2006; accepted 20 September 2006
(C) 2006 OSA 30 October 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 22 / OPTICS EXPRESS 10293
varying amplitude condition but it is reasonably accurate even for shorter (femtosecond) pulses
if sufficient number of higher order dispersive terms are included. We have included dispersion
terms upto six orders while solving the above equation using split step Fourier method [9] and
we have verified the accuracy of our model by reproducing published experimental results for
femtosecond pulses.

3. Fiber design and modeling

n1

n (r)

n3
n2

a b
Radial Distance (r)

Fig. 1. Refractive index profile of a dispersion-flattened W-fiber

Figure 1 shows the refractive index profile of the dispersion-flattened W-fiber. Here ∆ is de-
fined as (n2i − n33 )/2n23 where n3 corresponds to pure silica refractive index (calculated using
Sellemeier’s equation [10]) and i = 1, 2 refer to core and depressed cladding respectively. To
calculate the effective refractive indices and the normalised modal fields of the guided funda-
mental mode in the proposed fiber, we obtain the eigenvalue equation using Matrix method
[11] and solve it by bisection method. The effective refractive index of the mode is calculated
upto fifteenth decimal place so as to accurately determine the dispersion coefficients (βm ). The
fiber refractive indices and dimensions are so chosen that the fiber is single moded in the entire
wavelength range of operation and the fundamental mode field is tightly confined to the core to
enhance nonlinearity. It is also ensured that the fiber has a flat spectral variation of dispersion
coefficient D around the pump wavelength, which is chosen to be at 1555 nm.

4. Optimisation for high power, flat bandwidth supercontinuum

4.1. Effect of dispersion slope
The process of supercontinuum generation is an interplay between various nonlinear and disper-
sive effects. One of the important steps in spectral broadening is the higher order soliton fission
caused primarily due to the perturbation by third order dispersion (TOD) or self steepening
effect or spontaneous Raman scattering (SRS) [9]. In short lengths of fibers, SRS is usually not
dominant and soliton decay is primarily caused by the presence of finite third order dispersion
if the pump pulse is close to the zero dispersion wavelength. Soliton decay due to TOD splits
the input pulse into a solitonic pulse in the anomalous dispersion regime and a dispersive wave
(DW) in the normal dispersion regime [12]. As a result the spectral as well as the temporal
spectrum gets divided into distinct parts and the spectral flatness gets deteriorated. Thus for
applications involving narrow but flat bandwidths, one would like to avoid soliton decay so
that the spectrum broadens itself uniformly under the sole effects of SPM and GVD, and the
pump pulse power gets evenly distributed among the neighbouring wavelengths. Such soliton
decay can be suppressed if the magnitude of β3 is kept low (i.e dispersion slope is small). So

#71500 - $15.00 USD Received 31 May 2006; revised 30 August 2006; accepted 20 September 2006
(C) 2006 OSA 30 October 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 22 / OPTICS EXPRESS 10294
 the first requirement for designing a flat bandwidth DWDM source is to use a fiber with mini-
mum, positive dispersion slope (e.g. at the peak of convex dispersion profile). Figures 2 and 3
show the evolution of SC spectrum in a single fiber for two different values of β3 . All the other
parameters are kept the same-pump wavelength-1555 nm, input peak power-200 W and pulse
width-80 fs. The fiber parameters are ∆1 = 1.2%, ∆2 = -0.5% and b/a = 3. We may note here
that for higher value of β3 the soliton decay takes place much before any significant spectral
broadening takes place, and hence such a case is undesirable for high power, flat bandwidth
applications. Figure 4 shows the dispersion profile of the designed fiber for different scaling
ratios (pulling speeds while fiber drawing). The solid blue line (D peak ∼0.5 ps/km.nm) shows
the profile used for generating Figs. 2 and 3.

β3=8 x 10−4ps3/km
−2 3
β =1x 10 ps /km
4 4 3

3.5 3.5

3 3

Pulse intensity (W)

Pulse intensity (W)

2.5 2.5

2 2

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5

0 0
0 1
1 1650 2 1700
1600 1600
2 1550 3 1500
−3
3 1500 −3
4 1400
x 10 Distance (km) 4 1450 x 10 Distance (km) 5 1300
Wavelength (nm) Wavelength (nm)

Fig. 2. Evolution of SC spectrum for β3 = 8x10−4 ps3 /km Fig. 3. Evolution of SC spectrum for β3 = 1x10−2 ps3 /km

0.5

0
Dispersion (ps/km.nm)

−0.5

Dpeak = 0.9 ps/km.nm

−1
D = 0.7 ps/km.nm
peak
−1.5
D = 0.5 ps/km.nm
peak

−2 D = −0.05 ps/km.nm
peak

−2.5
1450 1500 1550 1600 1650
Wavelength (nm)

Fig. 4. Dispersion profiles of the designed dispersion-flattened W-fiber for different scaling ratios

4.2. Effect of input pulse width

Pulse width is another important parameter which decides the bandwidth as well as spectral
flatness of the supercontinuum spectrum. We observe that even when the soliton decay due to
DW generation is avoided, the supercontinuum spectrum is usually characterised by a sharp
spiked structure around the pump wavelength in spectral domain. Such a spiked structure is
caused by the phenomenon of higher order soliton compression. When a higher order solitonic
pulse is injected in a fiber with high anomalous dispersion, then the interplay between SPM

#71500 - $15.00 USD Received 31 May 2006; revised 30 August 2006; accepted 20 September 2006
(C) 2006 OSA 30 October 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 22 / OPTICS EXPRESS 10295
 and positive dispersion causes the pulse to compress [9]. This process is known as higher or-
der pulse compression and is very instrumental in broadening the pulse spectrum. During this
process the wings of the pulse are not as well compressed as the central part and as a result the
compressed output pulse attains the shape of a narrow spike over a broad pedestal of energy
in the temporal domain. The corresponding pulse spectrum is characterised by sharp peak in
the center of the pulse spectrum, which traps most of the pulse energy in it and two low power
side lobes on either side of the central peak. As the pulse propagates in the fiber, the spectral
side lobes broaden spectrally but remain low in power [7]. Thus for high power, spectrally flat
SC, higher order soliton compression should be avoided by using femtosecond pulses in fibers
operating near zero dispersion regime.

1 32
FWHM=40 fs, L=2.5 m

FWHM=80 fs, L=3.7 m 31.5 FWHM = 80 fs

0.5 Peak power = 200 W
FWHM=120 fs, L=5.4 m L = 3.7 m
31
Normalised Intensity

Intensity (dBm)
30.5

−0.5 30

29.5
−1
29

−1.5
28.5

−2 28
1500 1520 1540 1560 1580 1600 1620 1500 1520 1540 1560 1580 1600 1620
Wavelength (nm) Wavelength (nm)

Fig. 5. SC spectra for different input pulse widths Fig. 6. Optimised supercontinuum spectrum

Since to achieve similar levels of spectral width, picosecond pulses have to undergo greater
amount of compression as compared to femtosecond pulses, the spectrum corresponding to
compressed picosecond pulses is much more deteriorated in terms of spectral flatness. There-
fore, it is more advantageous to use femtosecond pulses at the input. Another important point to
keep in mind is that operating with ultrashort pulses close to the zero dispersion regime again
increases the chances of soliton decay by dispersive wave generation, which could degrade the
SC flatness. Thus one has to choose the pulse width and the dispersion profile iteratively for
maximum flatness and high power density. Figure 5 shows the normalised output supercontin-
uum spectra obtained with different input pulse widths. The input pulse energy is the same in
all the cases and the length is optimised for best flatness. The rest of the parameters are the
same as in Fig. 6. The 40 fs pulse undergoes soliton decay just after the shown length and gen-
erates a broad but highly non-flat spectrum. The 120 fs pulse has a narrower bandwidth and the
ripple due to peaks and valleys is sharper as compared to the 80 fs case. It has been observed
that maximum flatness is achieved if the fiber consists of two sections, the first half with peak
dispersion D peak =-0.05 ps/km.nm (orange curve in Fig. 4) and the second half with D peak =0.5
ps/km.nm (blue curve in Fig. 4). The total length of the fiber is 3.7 m. By having the first half
of the fiber with peak dispersion on slightly negative side, we are further delaying the process
of solitonic compression. Thus in the first half of the fiber, the pulse broadens smoothly under
the sole effect of SPM and in the second half, pulse compression starts to take place and the
spectrum broadens further. Figure 6 shows the optimised supercontinuum spectrum in the de-
signed fiber with input pulse width is 80 fs and the peak power is 200 W. We may note from
Fig. 6 that high power (> 30 dBm) output power with ± 0.5 dB ripple is achievable over 90 nm
bandwidth (1512 nm - 1602 nm) over C+L band of optical communication systems.

#71500 - $15.00 USD Received 31 May 2006; revised 30 August 2006; accepted 20 September 2006
(C) 2006 OSA 30 October 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 22 / OPTICS EXPRESS 10296
 4.3. Fiber length
Fiber length is an obvious parameter affecting the power density and flatness of supercontinuum
spectrum. As the fiber length increases, the SC spectrum lowers down in intensity and spreads
out in bandwidth alongwith creation of finer spectral features. Thus there is always an optimum
fiber length for which the flatness is maximised.

5. Optimisation of bandwidth and power output

In this section, we show that the SC spectrum can be further tailored according to the require-
ments of the system by choosing different operating conditions. For example by a choice of
different dispersion profiles and fiber lengths one can achieve a lower bandwidth-higher output
power spectrum or vice-versa. Figure 7 shows the different spectra achieved by changing the
peak dispersion coefficient (D peak in ps/km.nm) of the fiber and optimising the total fiber length
(L). The corresponding dispersion plots are shown in Fig. 4 and the input pulse parameters are
the same as in Fig. 6. L1 and L2 for the red curve in Fig. 7 refer to lengths of the first and sec-
ond sections of the fiber respectively. We may note that very high power with flat but narrower
bandwidth can be achieved by operating in slightly higher anomalous dispersion regime (black
curve).
One of the important advantage of the proposed design is that the output power level of the
SC spectrum can be tuned by varying the input pulse power, without degrading the spectral
flatness. This gives a dynamic range of power levels available for the DWDM source based on
this design. Figure 8 shows the SC spectra under three input power levels. For input peak power
(Pp ) lower than 150 mW, the SC is not efficiently generated because the nonlinear effects are
substantially reduced.

2.5 1.8
Dpeak= 0.93, L=6.3 m D =−0.05, L =1.85 m Pp = 300 W, L = 2.4 m
peak 1
D =0.5, L =1.85 m 1.6
D =−0.05, L=4.6 m peak 2
peak
2
Dpeak=0.5, L=3.6 m 1.4
Intensity (W)

1.2
Pp = 200 W, L = 3.7 m
Power (W)

1.5
1

0.8
1
0.6 Pp = 150 W, L = 5.0 m

0.5 0.4

0.2

1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650
Wavelength (nm) Wavelength (nm)

Fig. 7. SC spectra for different peak dispersion coefficients Fig. 8. SC spectra with different input pulse peak power

6. Conclusions
A comprehensive analysis for spectral shaping of high power supercontinuum over 90-nm band-
width has been presented. The physical mechanisms responsible for affecting the spectral flat-
ness of supercontinuum have been discussed and an optimised design for flat-top (< ± 0.5 dB
ripple), high power supercontinuum source covering C+L band of optical communication win-
dow has been presented. The spectral flatness is shown to be tolerant with respect to the input
pump power and possibilities of higher output power spectra over narrow wavelength range
have also been discussed.

#71500 - $15.00 USD Received 31 May 2006; revised 30 August 2006; accepted 20 September 2006
(C) 2006 OSA 30 October 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 22 / OPTICS EXPRESS 10297