All-solid highly nonlinear singlemode fibers with a tailored dispersion profile.

We investigate a novel approach to obtain highly nonlinear fibers with a tailored group velocity dispersion around a desired wavelength region of interest. Rather than exploiting longitudinal holes to control the average refractive index of the cladding and hence the fiber's waveguide dispersion, as in holey fibers, we propose using an all-solid cladding with a suitably chosen refractive index difference relative to the core. We demonstrate numerically that this solution allows a large freedom in the manipulation of the overall fiber dispersive properties, while enabling, in practice, a much more accurate control of the fiber's structural properties during fabrication. Effectively single mode guidance over a broad wavelength range can be achieved through the use of a second outer cladding forming a W-type index profile. We derive simple design rules for dispersion controlled fibers, based on which an algorithm for the automatic dispersion optimization is proposed, implemented and used to design various nonlinear fibers for all-optical processing and supercontinuum generation. Fabrication of a lead silicate fiber with flattened dispersion at telecoms wavelengths confirms the potential of these new fibers.