During the last decade there has been a surge of interest in developing mid-infrared (mid-IR) fiber-based supercontinuum (SC) sources. Such broadband light sources take advantage of extreme spectral broadening of high-intensity laser pulses in infrared optical fibers usually made of soft glasses, such as chalcogenides that offer the widest transmission window and the highest nonlinearity. Beyond their spatial coherence and high brightness, mid-IR fiber SC sources are nowadays operating over some wavelength ranges of thermal sources with superior performances for spectroscopic applications. However, intrinsic limitations of current fibers or even integrated waveguides now appear to impose the long-wavelength edge of mid-IR SC sources around 13-15 μm. The current research has to focus now on extending the wavelength coverage over the entire mid-IR molecular fingerprint region (often defined as from 2 to 20 μm).
We here overcome this limitation by the engineered nonlinear transformation of femtosecond pulses over the full transmission window of a step-index chalcogenide fiber. In contrast to previous works, we reach the long-wavelength transparency edge of Se-rich glass family near 18 μm, and without including arsenic and antimony compounds considered as toxic elements and pollutants. Our end-to-end control of both materials chemistry and nonlinear fiber optics, including glass synthesis and purification, fiber design and drawing, as well as engineering of SC generation, has allowed us to optimize each of these crucial steps in order to demonstrate coherent mid-IR SC generation spanning from 2 to 18 μm.
Optical fibers mid-infrared (mid-IR) supercontinuum (SC) generation for sources covering the 1–20 μm range are of great interest for many applications in optics, spectroscopy, sensing for environmental monitoring or medical diagnosis and treatment. We present here our work regarding two low phonon energy glasses families, leading to highly nonlinear optical fibers for SC generation: tellurites and seleno-telluride glasses. Tellurite fibers are suitable for working in the 1-5 μm range, when seleno-telluride ones are intended to the 2-16 μm range. For tellurites, we focus on the definition of glass pairs suitable for the drawing of step index fibers with a controlled chromatic dispersion for a femto-second (fs) pumping around 2 μm. In the case of chalcogenide glasses, we focus on the Ge-Se-Te ternary system, which offers the advantage of allowing the drawing of step index or micro-structured fibers avoiding the usage of toxic arsenic. Depending on the fiber geometry the management of the chromatic dispersion is quite different. Suspended core fibers allow to shift deeply the unique zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) towards short wavelengths for fs pumping around 2- 3 μm. For step index fibers, it is possible to design waveguides with no, one or two ZDW. Various pumping schemes are available between 3 and 9 μm, with a fs tunable source. As a result, SC generation experiments in these different fibers allows to reach wide spanning spectra, between 1 and more than 5 μm for tellurite fibers, and between 2 and more than 14 μm in the case of chalcogenides ones.
The development and the emergence of fully integrated all-fiber optical systems is very interesting from a technical point of view in photonics. Indeed, the development of mutimaterials fibers combining both optical waveguide properties and simultaneous in-fiber electrical excitation could provide plenty of innovative signal-processing, sensing or imaging functionalities. Here, we report the engineering of a new glass/metal composite fiber. For the glass, we have chosen tellurite glasses for their excellent thermo-viscous abilities (low Tg) and linear/nonlinear optical properties. This low Tg allows to have a larger panel of potential metals to be co-drawn with. The synthesis is firstly realized by build-in-casting at room atmosphere which allows to get a large-core. Then, the rod-in-tube technique and the insertion of metallic wires allow to get a step-index fiber with a small-core (7μm) and two continuous metallic electrodes running along the fiber axis (Øelectrodes = 30μm). Thus, we obtain a tellurite-based core-clad dual-electrode composite fiber made by direct, homothetic preform-to-fiber thermal co-drawing. The rheological and optical properties of the selected glasses allow both to regulate the metallic melting flow and to manage the refractive index core/clad waveguide profile. We will discuss the engineering of these multimaterials optical fibers and their characterization: thermal and viscosity properties, linear optical properties (loss), electrical properties with a continuity of the electrodes over meters of fiber.
Development of broadband supercontinuum sources has been studied since decades for its high application potential in various fields like spectroscopy, medical science and others. First experiments were made with silica but the results shown the need to find new materials for supercontinuum generation in the IR wavelength range. Two types of materials have been found interesting for supercontinuum generation: chalcogenide and tellurite glasses. These materials have a high non-linear refractive index and a good transmission in infrared which provides a high potential for applications. Bulks tellurite glasses transmit until 5µm while bulks chalcogenide glasses transmit until 12-20µm depending on their composition. We report here the synthesis of low-OH step-index tellurite fibers and their linear and non-linear characterization. The synthesis is firstly realized by build-in-casting in a glovebox which allows to get a large-core preform(∅clad/∅core 2) and a large core corresponding fiber(∅core 60µm). Then, the rod-in-tube technique allows, from the jacketing of the stretched initial preform, to get a small-core preform and subsequently a small core fiber (∅core 3.5µm). The minimum of losses of the large-core fiber is below 1dB/m, the IR transmission wavelength exceeds 4 µm on several meters of fibers and reaches more than 5 µm on small samples (several centimeters long). We have developed core-clad composition with a large refractive index difference (∆n=0.132) which provides a high confinement in our step-index fibers. We discuss the supercontinuum generation in these fibers exploiting numerical simulations based on the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation and then we present the supercontinuum experimental results obtained between 1 and 5µm. Most of pollutant and greenhouse gases emitted by human activity, including methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, absorbs in the mid-IR. The spectroscopic experiments realized on the gases through supercontinuum generation between 1 and 5 µm are presented.
We present an overview of the fabrication process and characterization of germanate, germanate-tellurite and tellurite microstructured fibers or step-index fibers with different index contrasts. For microstructured fibers, we exploit the generated SC for methane spectroscopy measurements in the mid-infrared by means of the supercontinuum absorption spectroscopy technique. We demonstrate also an ageing process of microstructured fibers in ambient atmosphere. For stepindex fibers, several compatible core/cladding glasses were explored for fiber manufacturing with a dehydration process, allowing the drawing of low-OH tellurite fibers. We report both numerical and experimental demonstrations supercontinuum (SC) generation in these fibers. Finally we report our latest results in the generation of SC until 5.3 μm in a step-index tellurite fiber.
We report the manufacturing and characterization of Tellurite micro structured fibres (MOFs) with low OH content. The different purification processes used during the fabrication of the TeO2 - ZnO - Na2O glass allowed us to reduce the hydroxyl compounds concentration down to 1ppm mass. A suspended core MOF was drawn from this material and then pumped by nanojoule-level femtosecond pulses at 1.7μm, its zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW), and well above it at 2.5μm. We show the related supercontinuum (SC) generated in the two distinct dispersion regimes of the waveguide. Moreover, the SC spanning was extended in both visible and mid-IR regions (between 600nm up to 3300nm) by the taperisation of the previously tested MOFs.
In this work we report our achievements in the elaboration and optical characterizations of low-losses suspended
core optical fibers elaborated from As2S3 glass. For preforms elaboration, alternatively to other processes like the stack and draw or extrusion, we use a process based on mechanical drilling. The drawing of these drilled
performs into fibers allows reaching a suspended core geometry, in which a 2 μm diameter core is linked to the
fiber clad region by three supporting struts. The different fibers that have been drawn show losses close to
0.9 dB/m at 1.55 μm. The suspended core waveguide geometry has also an efficient influence on the chromatic
dispersion and allows its management. Indeed, the zero dispersion wavelength, which is around 5 μm in the bulk
glass, is calculated to be shifted towards around 2μm in our suspended core fibers. In order to qualify their
nonlinearity we have pumped them at 1.995 μm with the help of a fibered ns source. We have observed a strong
non linear response with evidence of spontaneous Raman scattering and strong spectral broadening.
We present the fabrication of tellurite TeO2-ZnO-Na2O (TZN) microstructured optical fibers (MOFs) with a suspended
core and the characterization of their optical properties. The fibers are designed to develop an infrared supercontinuum
generation using a sub-nJ femtosecond pulsed laser at 1.56μm. By pumping a 20 cm long fiber we generate a
supercontinuum (SC) spanning over 800 nm in the 1-2 μm wavelength range. For a MOF with a core size of 2.2 μm the
zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) is at 1.45 μm. The effective area of TZN MOF is 3.5 μm2 and the nonlinear coefficient is calculated to be 437 W-1km-1.
In this work, we review recent progress on the realization of chalcogenides Photonic Crystal Fibers (PCFs). We present
the fabrication of chalcogenide PCFs with a solid core for three different glass compositions containing a variety of
chalcogens. We show that the Stack and Draw technique currently used for silica PCFs can be problematic in the case of
chalcogenides glasses. We present correct PCF design enables a significant improvement of final fiber losses. We
obtained a lowest attenuation of 3 dB/m at 1.55 μm, of 4.5 dB/m at 3.39 μm and 6 dB/m at 9.3 μm. We also present
experimental demonstration of self phase modulation spectral broadening around 1,55 μm. Moreover, we investigate the
Brillouin and Raman scattering properties of a GeSbS PCF.
Chalcogenide glasses present several original properties when being compared to the reference silica glass. They are
very non linear, hundred to thousand times more non linear than the standard silica, they are very transparent in the
infrared, until 10 μm to 20 μm depending on their composition, and they can be drawn into optical fibers. Thus, the case
of chalcogenide photonic crystal fibers (PCF) is of particular interest. Indeed, the effective modal area is adjustable in
PCF thanks to geometrical parameters. Then chalcogenide microstructured fibers with small mode area could lead to
huge non linear photonic devices in the infrared by the combination of the intrinsic non linearity of these glasses with
the non linearity induced by the PCF. Chalcogenide photonic crystal fibers offer therefore a great potential for
applications in the fields of Raman amplification or Raman lasers and supercontinuum generation in the mid infrared
until at least 5 μm. The possibility to design PCF exhibiting a working range in the mid infrared and more specifically
in the 1-6 μm wavelength range opens also perspectives in the optical detection of chemical or biochemical species.
This contribution presents the advances in the elaboration of such chalcogenide photonic crystal fibers.
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