Designing fiber tapers for tunable dispersive-wave generation from agile Yb-based pump lasers

The generation of wavelength-tunable dispersive waves in tapered optical fibers is modeled. The pump source is taken to be a femtosecond laser with emission wavelength at 1030 nm, which is appropriate for an Yb-based fiber laser and variable pulse energy and duration. The variable pulse properties translate into wavelength tunability of the dispersive waves across the visible spectrum due to the fiber tapering. This contribution investigates taper design strategies to obtain features such as spectral isolation of the visible output, low-noise operation with optimal spectral density, and short output pulses. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America