Femtosecond soliton source with fast and broad spectral tunability

We present a complete set of measurements and numerical simulations of a femtosecond soliton source with fast and broad spectral tunability and nearly constant pulse width and average power. Solitons generated in a photonic crystal fiber, at the low-power coupling regime, can be tuned in a broad range of wavelengths, from 850 to 1200 run using the input power as the control parameter. These solitons keep almost constant time duration (similar to 40 fs) and spectral widths (similar to 20 nm) over the entire measured spectra regardless of input power. Our numerical simulations agree well with measurements and predict a wide working wavelength range and robustness to input parameters. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America