Ultraviolet to visible continuum generation in a silica photonic crystal fiber

The ultraviolet to visible continuum generations are experimentally demonstrated by coupling femtosecond pump pulses around 800 nm into the normal dispersion region close to the zero-dispersion wavelength in the fundamental mode of a silica photonic crystal fiber (PCF). The ultraviolet to visible continuum is generated through a combination of nonlinear effects including degenerate four-wave mixing, cross-phase modulation, and stimulated Raman scattering. When pump pulses with the wavelength of 800 nm and the input average power of 500 mW are used, more than 40% of the incident pump power is converted to the ultraviolet to visible spectral region. The evolution of the output spectra for different PCF lengths is studied to understand the nonlinear propagation dynamics during the process of the continuum generation. The ultraviolet to visible continuum generation will find important applications in the ultraviolet and visible-based biophotonics and spectroscopy. (C) 2018 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)