Optimized All-Fiber Supercontinuum Source at 1.3 $\mu \hbox{m}$ Generated in a Stepwise Dispersion-Decreasing-Fiber Arrangement

In this paper, the generation of a continuous-wave (CW)-pumped supercontinuum (SC) source at 1.3 mum is described. The device makes use of a tunable Yb-doped fiber laser, a cascade of fiber Bragg grating mirrors, and a concatenation of standard silica fibers with stepwise decreasing dispersion. It is shown that the dispersion-decreasing-fiber set enhances the width of the generated SC, since it favors the fission of the CW input into high-order solitons. The generated SC spans from 1280 to 1513 nm, shows an average output power of 1.34 W, and exhibits >0-dBm/nm spectral density of over 200 nm.