Over Two Octave Spanning Visible and Near-IR Supercontinuum Generation in Dual-Core PCF

A dual-core photonic crystal fiber (DC-PCF) of hexagonal lattice is designed with a tailored dispersion profile possessing a large air-filling fraction. Numerical investigation of the PCF reveals a great potential for supercontinuum (SC) generation extending 0.4 μm to 2.0 μm, when excited by a 50 fs input pulse of 800 nm pumping wavelength, 79 MHz repetition rate and a coupled average power of 135 mW corresponding to pulse energy of 1.71 nJ in a 10 cm DC-PCF. The PCF and the SC spectra thus showed desirable properties for applications in biological sensors, optical fiber communication, frequency metrology and optical coherence tomography.