Raman effects in the infrared supercontinuum generation in soft-glass PCFs

Measurements of the Raman gain spectra in the SF6 and SF57 highly-nonlinear-glasses demonstrated twice as high Raman shift in comparison with the fused silica. Numerical simulation predicted that a large Raman shift in combination with high nonlinearity can significantly reduce the required input pulse intensity for supercontinuum in these glasses, retaining the necessary degree of coherence. We found, that the degradation of the SC coherence due to Raman soliton jitter can be effectively controlled by a correct choice of input intensity and fiber length. Also it was found, that high degree of coherence correlates with the spectrum shape in the vicinity of the Raman threshold, providing an convenient experimental observable.