Role of dispersion profile in controlling emission of dispersive waves by solitons in supercontinuum generation

We study the supercontinuum process in optical fibers numerically for a variety of dispersion profiles to investigate how a specific dispersion profile controls the emission of dispersive waves. We conclude that the number of zero-dispersion points in the dispersion profile of a fiber is an excellent predictor of the dispersive-wave peaks when it is pumped with femtosecond pulses in the anomalous dispersion regime. Our study reveals that two or more such peaks can form on the same side of the input wavelength in specially designed and practically achievable dispersion profiles. We show that dispersive waves are emitted even in the case of normal dispersion where soliton fission does not occur. We suggest that a phenomenon related to soliton spectral tunneling is responsible for this radiation. Distinct dispersive peaks may also appear when an optical pulse, launched in the normal dispersion region, later begins to propagate in the anomalous dispersion regime because of its spectral broadening. Several dispersion profiles are numerically employed to show how the soliton fission process creates non-solitonic radiation even under normal dispersion pumping. A time-domain picture clearly shows this radiation when the conventional phase matching condition is satisfied. We also propose a realistic photonic crystal fiber with a dispersion profile that supports dispersive-wave generation in the normal-dispersion region. Our study should prove useful for experiments designed to control the generation of blue light by launching femtosecond pulses into optical fibers: (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.