An efficient broad-band mid-wave IR fiber optic light source: design and performance simulation

Design of a mid-wave IR (MWIR) broad-band fiber-based light source exploiting degenerate four-wave mixing (D-FWM) in a meter long suitably designed highly nonlinear (NL) chalcogenide microstructured optical fiber (MOF) is reported. This superior FWM bandwidth (BW) was obtained through precise tailoring of the fiber's dispersion profile so as to realize positive quartic dispersion at the pump wavelength. We consider an Erbium (Er(3+)) - doped continuous wave (CW) ZBLAN fiber laser emitting at 2.8 μm as the pump source with an average power of 5 W. Amplification factor as high as 25 dB is achievable in the 3 - 3.9 μm spectral range with average power conversion efficiency > 32%.