This patent document relates in general to on-chip waveguides with flattened dispersion, and in particular to on-chip generation of an ultra-broad optical spectrum, called a supercontinuum, based on the flattened dispersion of the waveguides.
Generating a supercontinuum from a narrowband pulse is of particular interest in both fundamental science and engineering research of modern optics. Although recent years have witnessed dramatic advances in supercontinuum generation using photonic crystal fibers, it is quite challenging to obtain an octave-spanning supercontinuum on a chip, partially because of strong chromatic dispersion in high-index-contrast nonlinear integrated waveguides.