Improving mid-infrared supercontinuum generation efficiency by pumping a fluoride fiber directly into the anomalous regime at 1995 nm

Supercontinuum sources in the mid-infrared may found many potential applications to spectroscopy and material caracterization. Supercontinuum light extending up to 4000 nm has been efficiently generated in fluorozirconate glasses (ZBLAN) with 10.5 W power using an amplified nanosecond pulsed laser diode at 1550 nm [1]. As the dispersion wavelength of the fiber is closed to 1700 nm, pumping at 1550 nm does not directly allow generation of solitons. A first approach is thus to pump a piece of SMF fiber in the anomalous dispersion regime to generate the solitons and shift them to the anomalous dispersion regime of the ZBLAN fiber [1,2]. Another approach is to use a high power femtosecond laser…