Generation of a High-Power, Broadband Supercontinuum Spanning from Visible to Mid-Infrared Via Incoherent Beam Combination in a GeO2-core Fiber Bundle

In this work, we experimentally demonstrate a high-power supercontinuum (SC) that covers from visible to mid-infrared (MIR) in a GeO2-core fiber (GCF) bundle via incoherent beam combination. In the experiment, the SC generation in a single GCF was initially explored, and an SC spanning from visible to MIR regions was obtained, with average power of less than 10 W. To increase the output power, we fabricated a 3 & times;1 high-power GCF-based tapered fiber bundle, incoherently combining three channels of the previously mentioned replicas. This yielded a broadband SC spectrum with a maximum average power of 23.1 W and a spectral bandwidth covering 0.73-3.1 mu m. The obtained spectrum power fluctuation was measured over 1 hour, showing a root mean square value of 0.7%. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the highest power SC from visible to MIR regions obtained in GCFs pumped by 1.55 mu m high-power pulses.