硅芯光纤是以硅为光纤纤芯材料的新型光纤。硅材料已被证明了具有优良的非线性光学性能，利用硅芯光纤能非常短的光纤长度（亚厘米量级）里观测到明显的非线性效用。本项目聚焦硅芯光纤中光超连续谱产生的新机理和新技术的研究。项目将研究硅芯光纤后处理工艺，通过拉锥的工艺改变硅芯光纤的纤芯大小，提高了纤芯中硅材料的结晶度，同时降低光学损耗和调节硅芯光纤的色散因子。根据色散调控的结果，可灵活地选择泵浦波长。泵源拟采用中心波长位于1550 nm锁模光纤激光器，通过光纤直接熔接的方法来实现泵浦光源输出尾纤与硅芯光纤之间高效耦合，熔接过程中精细控制温度等关键参数来实现低损耗的熔接。最终使用该脉冲来泵浦硅芯光纤从而产生覆盖近红外到中红外波段的光超连续谱。研究过程中也将对硅芯光纤中超连续谱的产生机理以及谱宽特性进行分析，分析泵浦光源分别处于正常色散区和反常色散区对产生光谱的影响。

This research project will focus on mid-infrared supercontinuum generation in dispersion tailored silicon optical fiber using 1.55 μm pump. By utilizing the high nonlinear strength and aided by the large refractive index contrast, the available spectrum be greatly expanded from near infrared to the mid-infrared regime. Because silicon is the core material of the optical fiber, the nonlinear coefficient of this fiber is a thousand times more than conventional silica optical fiber, which makes the nonlinear effect can be observed in a relatively short fiber length. By changing the core size of silicon fiber, the dispersion can be tailored which is benefit for flexibly choosing the pump wavelength. The pump source is located at 1550 nm using a mode-locked fiber laser. Fusing splicing of silicon optical fiber and single mode fibre will be investigated. Using this pump source, supercontinuum can be generated in a very short piece of silicon fiber. Analysis of the influence of the pump light source in the normal dispersion or anomalous dispersion region will be investigated.