Analysis of supercontinuum generation under general dispersion characteristics and beyond the slowly varying envelope approximation

The generation of broadband supercontinua (SC) in air-silica microstructured fibers results from a delicate balance of dispersion and nonlinearity. We analyze two models aimed at better understanding SC. In the first one, we characterize linear dispersion in the Fourier domain from the calculated group velocity dispersion (GVD) without using a Taylor approximation for the propagation constant. Results of our numerical simulations are in a good agreement with experiments. A novel relevant length scale, namely the length for shock formation is introduced and its role is discussed. The second part shows similar dynamics for a model that goes beyond the slowly varying approximation for optical pulse propagation.