Route to supercontinuum in photonic crystal fibers

Summary from only given. We have observed that when the pump wavelength is located in the anomalous dispersion regime, an ultrabroad continuum can be generated even if the pump wavelength is detuned more than 130 nm away from the zero-dispersion wavelength. In contrast, when the pump wavelength is located in the normal dispersion regime, the width of the continuum generated is smaller. We attribute the difference to be due to the mechanisms involved being different and to the behavior of the third-order dispersion parameter whose positive value decreases with wavelength for the particular fibers used.