A silica optical fiber doped with yttrium aluminosilicate nanoparticles for supercontinuum generation

• A silica optical fiber doped with yttrium aluminosilicate (YAS, Y2O3–Al2O3–SiO2) nanoparticles in the core was designed and fabricated.
• The YAS nanoparticles in the fiber core can improve the nonlinearity.
• Supercontinuum generation by multiple solitons and dispersive waves was obtained.

We design and fabricate a silica optical fiber doped with yttrium aluminosilicate (YAS, Y2O3–Al2O3–SiO2) nanoparticles in the core. The optical fiber is drawn directly from a silica tube with YAG (Y3Al5O12) ceramics and silica powders (the molar ratio 1:18) in the core at the temperature of ∼1950 °C. The YAS nanoparticles are formed during the optical fiber drawing process. Supercontinuum (SC) generation in the optical fiber is investigated at different pump wavelength. At the pump wavelength of ∼1750 nm which is in the deep anomalous dispersion region, SC spectrum evolution is mainly due to multiple solitons and dispersive waves (DWs), and three pairs of multiple optical solitons and DWs are observed. When the pump wavelength shifts to ∼1500 nm which is close to the zero-dispersion wavelength (ZDW), flattened SC spectrum with ±7 dB uniformity is obtained at the wavelength region of ∼990–1980 nm, and only one obvious soliton and DW are observed. At the pump wavelength of ∼1100 nm, a narrow SC spectrum from ∼1020 to 1180 nm is obtained in the normal dispersion region due to self-phase modulation (SPM) effect.