Effect of wavelength dependence of nonlinearity, gain, and dispersion in photonic crystal fiber amplifiers

Abstract

Photonic crystal fibers are used in fiber amplifiers and lasers because of the flexibility in the design of mode area and dispersion. However, these quantities depend strongly on the wavelength. The wavelength dependence of gain, nonlinearity and dispersion are investigated here by including the wavelength dependence explicitly in the nonlinear Schrödinger equation for photonic crystal fibers with varying periods and hole sizes. The effect of the wavelength dependence of each parameter is studied separately as well as combined. The wavelength dependence of the parameters is shown to create asymmetry to the spectrum and chirp, but to have a moderating effect on pulse broadening. The effect of including the wavelength dependence of nonlinearity in the simulations is demonstrated to be the most significant compared that of dispersion or gain.