Experimental Investigation of the Role of Four-Wave Mixing in Supercontinuum Generation From a Multimode 975-nm Pumped Fiber Ring Cavity

We demonstrate a broadband supercontinuum (SC) generation that covers an optical spectrum from 1300 to 2000 nm with output power of 1.3 W. The SC generation is realized using a fiber ring cavity that mainly consists of erbium-ytterbium-doped fiber pumped by multimode 975-nm pump lasers, and highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF). Moreover, we investigate the role of four-wave mixing (FWM) in the SC generation by using two different HNLFs, one having normal and the other having anomalous dispersion. It is found that FWM plays a critical role for broadening and flattening of the SC generation in addition to stimulated Raman scattering.