Supercontinuum generation in aqueous colloids containing silver nanoparticles

We numerically study low-threshold supercontinuum generation using the significant enhancement of nonlinearity in aqueous colloids with silver nanoparticles. We predict octave-spanning spectral broadening by femtosecond pulses with an intensity in the range of tens of GW/cm2. The strong frequency dependence of the effective nonlinear coefficient of the composite significantly influences the spectral broadening by self-phase modulation and leads to a large blueshift of the spectra.