Highly nonlinear bismuth-oxide fiber for supercontinuum generation and femtosecond pulse compression

Highly nonlinear normally dispersive bismuth-oxide fiber shows promise for applications such as supercontinuum generation and femtosecond pulse compression in the telecommunications-wavelength range. To generate a wideband and flat supercontinuum spectrum, the balance between fiber nonlinearity and normal group velocity dispersion (GVD) is important. Highly nonlinear bismuth-oxide fiber exhibits a large nonlinearity due to the small effective area and nonlinear index of the host glass material. The fiber also has a relatively flat dispersion profile over a large wavelength range. Utilizing these features, we generate a smooth unstructured supercontinuum between 1200 and 1800 nm. This supercontinuum is passed through a grating pair, and pulses, originally of 150-fs length, are compressed to 25 fs.