In just 10 years, supercontinuum power levels have grown an order of magnitude with spectral range spanning from 380 to 2400 nm. Enhanced understanding of supercontinuum generation in optical fibers will enable continued product and application evolution. Spectral broadening and new frequency generation are features of nonlinear optics that have been utilized and studied for many decades. In the 1970s, the generation of an extended "white light" source through extreme nonlinear spectral broadening of optical pulses eventually led to the term "supercontinuum." However, because the nonlinearity of glass is relatively low, it requires very high peak powers to generate significant spectral broadening in bulk material; the interaction length is inversely proportional to the spot size: the tighter the focus, the shorter the effective interaction length (typically a few centimeters). The obvious solution is to confine light and use the guiding properties of optical fibers to extend the interaction length.
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