Supercontinuum generation in irregularly microstructured elliptic core fibers

Abstract

We have investigated the supercontinuum spectra generated in an irregularly microstructured elliptic core fiber, a fiber with an elliptic core surrounded by irregularly arranged air holes. The supercontinuum spectra are strongly dependent on the polarization direction of the linearly polarized input pulse because of the large ellipticity of the core caused by the irregularity of air holes. From the simulation results obtained by solving numerically the generalized nonlinear Schrodinger equation with the adaptive split-step Fourier method, we show that the supercontinuum spectra can be analyzed as the sum of two supercontinuum spectra for the respective fundamental modes of the elliptic core. The polarization-dependent supercontinuum spectra could be useful in the implementation of a tunable broadband source.