Abstract
We present a polarisation-maintaining all-normal dispersion photonic crystal fibre designed for 1030 nm femtosecond pumping, enabling ultra-stable and coherent supercontinuum (SC) generation spanning 650–1300 nm. The fibre’s polarisation-maintaining properties are achieved through two larger central holes in the structure, which is an alternative approach to using conventional stress rods. The fibre is specifically engineered to achieve minimum dispersion near 1030 nm, making it ideal for ultrafast comb-based metrology, and widely tunable optical parametric amplifier (OPA) systems. We further investigate the influence of input pulse contrast on supercontinuum generation through both numerical simulations and experiments. Relative intensity noise (RIN) and phase noise (PN) are characterized using three complementary techniques: dispersive Fourier transform (DFT), the Bellini–Hänsch interferometric method, and the dual-reference oscillator cross-correlation technique. The results demonstrate excellent stability, with pulse-to-pulse RIN below 0.5%, an optical phase deviation under 15 mrad, and phase noise levels down to − 150 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz from the carrier, confirming the fibre’s suitability for demanding ultrafast applications.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
Heidt, A. M. et al. Coherent octave-spanning near-infrared and visible supercontinuum generation in all-normal dispersion photonic crystal fibers. Opt. Express 19, 3775–3787. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.19.003775 (2011).
Hooper, L. E., Mosley, P. J., Muir, A. C., Wadsworth, W. J. & Knight, J. C. Coherent supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber with all-normal group velocity dispersion. Opt. Express 19, 4902–4907. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.19.004902 (2011).
Tarnowski, K. et al. Compact all-fiber source of coherent linearly polarised octave-spanning supercontinuum based on normal-dispersion silica fiber. Sci. Rep. 9, 12313. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48812-3 (2019).
Heidt, A. M., Spangenberg, D. M., Rampur, A., Hartung, A. & Bartelt, H. All-normal dispersion fiber supercontinuum: Principles, design, and applications of a unique white light source. In The Supercontinuum Laser Source (ed. Alfano, R. R.) 299–341 (Springer, 2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98722-5_7.
Sylvestre, T. et al. Recent advances in supercontinuum generation in specialty optical fibers. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B Opt. Phys. 38(12), F90–F103. https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.438806 (2021).
Dudley, J. M. et al. Fibre supercontinuum generation: Progress and perspectives. EPL 151, 55001. https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/151/55001 (2025).
Rao, S. et al. Shot-noise limited, supercontinuum-based optical coherence tomography. Light Sci Appl. 10, 133–145. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-021-00591-0 (2021).
Rampur, A. et al. Perspective on the next generation of ultra-low noise fiber supercontinuum sources and their emerging applications in spectroscopy, imaging, and ultrafast photonics. Appl. Phys. Lett. 118(24), 240504. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0051881 (2021).
Newton, E., Jones, C., Hong, K.-H., Langseth, J. & Allured, R. Coherent combining of independently generated supercontinuum sources. Opt. Lett. 50, 6321–6324 (2025).
Sierro, B., Hänzi, P., Spangenberg, D., Rampur, A. & Heidt, A. Reducing the noise of fiber supercontinuum sources to its limits by exploiting cascaded soliton and wave-breaking nonlinear dynamics. Optica 9, 352–359. https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.455409 (2022).
Camenzind, S. L. et al. Ultra-low noise spectral broadening of two combs in a single ANDi fiber. APL Photonics 10, 036119. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0251190 (2025).
Bravo Gonzalo, I. et al. Polarisation noise places severe constraints on coherence of all-normal dispersion femtosecond supercontinuum generation. Sci. Rep. 8, 6579. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-24959-8 (2018).
Genier, E. et al. Ultra-flat, low-noise, and linearly polarised fiber supercontinuum source covering 670–1390 nm. Opt. Lett. 46, 1820–1823. https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.423656 (2021).
Hlubina, P., Kadulova, M. & Mergo, P. Chromatic dispersion measurement of holey fibres using a supercontinuum source and a dispersion-balanced interferometer. Opt. Lasers Eng. 51, 421–425. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2012.10.009 (2013).
Kabaciński, P., Kardaś, T. M., Stepanenko, Y. & Radzewicz, C. Nonlinear refractive index measurement by SPM-induced phase regression. Opt. Express 27, 11018–11028. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.011018 (2019).
Agrawal, G. P. Nonlinear Fiber Optics (Academic Press, 2019).
Genier, E. et al. Amplitude noise and coherence degradation of femtosecond supercontinuum generation in all-normal-dispersion fibers. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 36, A161–A167. https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.36.000A161 (2019).
Godin, T. et al. Recent advances on time-stretch dispersive Fourier transform and its applications. Adv. Phys. X https://doi.org/10.1080/23746149.2022.2067487 (2022).
Bellini, M. & Hänsch, T. W. Phase-locked white-light continuum pulses: Toward a universal optical frequency-comb synthesizer. Opt. Lett. 25(14), 1049–1051. https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.25.001049 (2000).
Maingot, B., Chériaux, G. & Jullien, A. Spectral coherence properties of continuum generation in bulk crystals. Opt. Express 30, 20311–20320. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.30.020311 (2022).
Lepetit, L., Chériaux, G. & Joffre, M. Linear techniques of phase measurement by femtosecond spectral interferometry for applications in spectroscopy. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 12(12), 2467–2474. https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.12.002467 (1995).
von der Linde, D. Characterization of the noise in continuously operating mode-locked lasers. Appl. Phys. B 39, 201–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00697487 (1986).
Ivanov, E. N., Diddams, S. A. & Hollberg, L. Experimental study of noise properties of a Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control. 50(4), 355–360. https://doi.org/10.1109/TUFFC.2003.1197957 (2003).
Funding
This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon research and innovation program under grant agreements No. 101135904 (VISUAL project), from the French National Agency (ANR-20-CE30-0004, ANR-21-ESRE-0040, ANR-17-EURE-0002), from the Région Bourgogne Franche-Comté, as well as the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). Authors from PhLAM also acknowledge the Contrats de Plan Etat-Region (CPER WaveTech), the French Ministry of Higher-Education and Research, the Hauts-de-France (HdF) Regional Council, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), IRCICA and the FibreTech Lille technological platform.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
R.M., J.M., V.T., A.J., N.F., M.M., Y.P., and T.S. conceived and conducted the experiments. R.M., N.F., and T.S. analyzed the results. A.C., V.A., D.L., O.V., and A.K. fabricated the ANDi fiber. R.M. and J.D. performed the simulations. T.S. wrote the manuscript and oversaw the entire project. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Morel, R., Millo, J., Forget, N. et al. Novel photonic crystal fibre for low-noise coherent supercontinuum generation. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-43460-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-43460-5
