Abstract

Recently there has been a lot of research interest in the so-called photonic crystal fibers(PCFs)^1,2 due to their interesting properties such as wide spectrum range of single-mode operation, high effective nonlinearity, easily achievable high birefringence, and novel chromatic dispersion. The high nonlinearity together with the zero-dispersion wavelength (ZDW) shifted to the near-infrared wavelength region where high power femtosecond laser sources (e.g., Ti:Sapphire femtosecond lasers) are available, enables the generation of broadband supercontin-uum (SC) spanning over an octave³. The broadband SC sources have such possible applications as high-resolution optical coherence tomography (OCT)⁴ and optical frequency metrology⁵.

© 2003 Optical Society of America