Microstructured Optical Fiber Designs for Coherent Supercontinuum Generation in Higher-Order Modes

The scope for power scaling of coherent supercontinuum generation using higher-order modes in microstructured optical fibers is investigated through numerical simulations. Multimode simulations of a birefringent design reveal pulse energy scaling beyond 100 nJ with good coherence properties, however the spectral shape appears highly sensitive to the spatial purity of pump incoupling. Generation of a visible coherent continuum from a 532 nm pump source is shown to be possible, with pulse energies around 10 nJ before decoherence from polarization mode coupling sets in. Finally, it is shown that the effective area can be increased, for comparable dispersion properties, by increasing the order of the pump mode, albeit at the price of increasingly complex spatial mode profiles.