Analysis of the scalability of single-mode near-infrared supercontinuum to high average power

The scalability of single-mode near-infrared supercontinuum (SC) generation directly from a fiber amplifier is analyzed considering thermal and nonlinear effects, fiber end facet damage, pump as well as fiber combiner limits, and damage to the ytterbium-doped fiber. For fiber amplifiers with 3 ns input pulse width and gain fiber with 30 mu m core diameter under optimized conditions, the safety temperature limit of the fiber coating prevents the average output power of the near-infrared SC from further scaling while the damage to the ytterbium-doped fiber restricts the scaling of the peak power of the near-infrared SC to a higher value. The results may provide some guidance on future work and the realization that kilowatt level near-infrared SC generation from a fiber amplifier with an average spectral power density of above 1 W nm(-1) is possible.