Recent advances on IR supercontinuum source and its applications

In this paper, we have reviewed our recent works on IR supercontinuum generation (SCG) and its applications. First, we provide a brief introduction on the motivations of the proposed effort. Second, the work of SCG in single crystal sapphire fibers is reviewed. Third, in addition to single crystal sapphire fibers, the method, the process, and the results of fabricating other IR waveguides are presented. Fourth, a quantitative simulation on the supercontinuum generation with the new IR waveguide is provided, which shows that it is possible to generate SCG beyond 5 microns. To the best knowledge of authors, this is the longest SCG reported so far. Finally, more experimental results of chemical analysis with supercontinuum source are presented.