Intensity and polarization dependences of the supercontinuum generation in birefringent and highly nonlinear...

We present experimental results highlighting the physica mechanism responsible for the initial spectral broadening of femtosecond Ti:Sapphire pulses in a highly birefringent microstructured fiber having a small effective area. By rotating the input polarization and varying the injected power while monitoring the resulting changes in the output spectrum, we are bringing clear evidences that the initial broadening mechanism leading to a broadband supercontinuum is indeed the fission of higher-order solitons into redshifted fundamental solitons along with blueshifted nonsolitonic radiation.