ABSTRACT
One of the most impressive nonlinear phenomena that can be observed in highly nonlinear fibers is the supercontinuum generation. It corresponds to an extremely wide spectrum achieved by an optical pulse while propagating in a nonlinear medium, and results generally from the synergy between several fundamental nonlinear processes, such as self-phase modulation, cross-phase modulation, stimulated Raman scattering, and four-wave mixing. The supercontinuum generation can be broadly divided in two categories, depending on the duration of the pump pulses. The first category corresponds to long pump pulses, whereas the second category is obtained with short pump pulses. The general features observed in the case of long duration pulses can also be extended to the continuous wave pumping in the anomalous dispersion regime. Pumping in the normal dispersion regime using femtosecond pulses, where soliton formation is not allowed, leads only to spectral broadening through self-phase modulation.
