Highly nonlinear bismuth-oxide fiber for smooth supercontinuum generation at 1.5 microm.

Short lengths of highly nonlinear bismuth-oxide fiber are used to generate smooth supercontinuum spanning from 1200 nm to 1800 nm, with sub-0.5 nJ pulse energies. The spectral broadening in a 2-cm length of this fiber was used to compress 150-fs pulses to 25 fs.