Supercontinuum generation and its applications

In this paper, a design theory for the supercontinuum spectrum generation in an optical fiber is firstly described. To generate a wideband supercontinuum spectrum, the balance between fiber nonlinearity and the amount of group velocity dispersion is important. Secondly, the experimental results of supercontinuum generation are shown. A few kinds of optical fibers such as a highly nonlinear dispersion-shifted fiber and a highly nonlinear bismuth-oxide fiber are tested. Finally several applications of supercontinuum light are described. We demonstrate multi-wavelength light source, multiplexing format conversion, and optical characterization using a supercontinuum light source.