Flat Supercontinuum Generation at 1550nm in a Dispersion-Flattened Microstructure Fibre Using Picosecond Pulse

The generation of a flat supercontinuum of over 80nm in the 1550nm region by injecting 1.6 ps 10 GHz repetition rate optical pulses into an 80-m-long dispersion-flattened microstructure fibre is demonstrated. The fibre has small normal dispersion with a variation smaller than 1.5 (ps.nm^-1.km^-1) between 1500 and 1650nm. The generated supercontinuum ranging from 1513 to 1591nm has the flatness of ±1.5dB and it is not so flat in the range of several
nanometres around the pump wavelength 1552nm. Numerical simulation is
also used to study the effect of optical loss, fibre parameters and pumping conditions on supercontinuum generation in the dispersion-flattened microstructure fibre, and can be used for further optimization to generate flat broad spectra.