Backward Supercontinuum Generation Excited By Random Lasing

Backward supercontinuum generation excited by random lasing is proposed and demonstrated for the first time. Unlike conventional supercontinuum generation, completely distributed random fiber laser is first used as an effective seeding laser to initiate supercontinuum emission in a composite configuration with TrueWave and dispersion compensated fibers. The two fibers provide both amplified random distributed feedback and nonlinear effect induced spectral broadening. Taking advantages of intrinsic characteristics of random distributed Rayleigh scattering and low-noise backward distributed Raman amplification of random lasing, backward supercontinuum is realized with much lower intensity fluctuation in time domain compared to the forward counterpart. The study of combined effects of random lasing and strong nonlinear mechanism not only enrich the research scope of supercontinuum and random fiber lasers, but also provide a practical way for the development of stable broadband light sources for various applications.