2007/06/08 by A. V. Gorbach, Gorbach, A. V., D. V. Skryabin +2
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Fiber Laser Technologies #Classical Physics (physics.class-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Optical Network Technologies #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic Crystal and Fiber Optics #physics.class-ph #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0706.1187
Substantially revised textm one figure added. 4 pages, 5 figures. Submitted for publication on 3rd of April 2007
openalex publication_date 2007/06/08 · arxiv created 2007/08/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The use of photonic crystal fibers pumped by femtosecond pulses has enabled the generation of broad optical supercontinua with nano-joule input energies. This striking discovery has applications ranging from spectroscopy and metrology to telecommunication and medicine. Amongst the physical principles underlying supercontinuum generation are soliton fission, a variety of four-wave mixing processes, Raman induced soliton self-frequency shift, and dispersive wave generation mediated by solitons. Although all of the above effects contribute to supercontinuum generation none of them can explain the generation of blue and violet light from infrared femtosecond pump pulses, which has been seen already in the first observations of the supercontinuum in photonic crystal fibers. In this work we argue that the most profound role in the shaping of the short-wavelength edge of the continuum is played by the effect of radiation trapping in a gravity-like potential created by accelerating solitons. The underlying physics of this effect has a straightforward analogy with the inertial forces acting on an observer moving with a constant acceleration.