Picosecond fiber MOPA pumped supercontinuum source with 39 W output power

We report a picosecond fiber MOPA pumped supercontinuum source with 39 W output, spanning at least 0.4-2.25 mu m at a repetition rate of 114.8 MHz. The 2m long PCF had a large, 4.4 mu m diameter core and a high-delta design which led to an 80% coupling efficiency, high damage threshold and rapid generation of visible continuum generation from the picosecond input pulses. The high and relatively uniform power density across the visible spectral region was similar to 31.7 mW/nm corresponding to peak power density of similar to 12.5 W/nm for the 21 ps input pulses. The peak power density was increased to 26.9 W/nm by reducing the repetition rate to 28 MHz. This represents an increase in both average and peak power compared to previously reported visible supercontinuum sources from either CW pumped or pulsed-systems. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America