Spectral features of the Stokes part of supercontinuum generated by femtosecond light pulses in selected oxide crystals: A comparative study

Abstract The peculiarities of the Stokes part of supercontinuum (SC) generated by femtosecond light pulses at wavelength 800 nm in single crystals of Gd2SiO5 (GSO), Ca4GdO(BO3)3 (GCOB), Gd3Ga5O12 (GGG), LiTaO3 (LTO) and LuVO4 (LVO) were investigated. Spectral bandwidth and intensity of SC were measured as a function of energy of incident 100 fs pulses employing a grating spectrograph coupled with an InGaAs detector and spatial characteristics of the beam inside crystal samples were monitored perpendicularly to the direction of propagation and recorded using an optical microscope coupled with a camera. It was found that spectral widths of the Stokes part of SC increase markedly with increasing energy of incident pulses for all crystals under study. For fixed focusing conditions the spectral widths of generated SC in GSO, GCOB and GGG wide band-gap crystals are relatively large with cut-off wavelengths close to 1500 nm. Bandwidths of SC generated in LVO and LTO crystals, characterized by band-gaps Eg inferior to three times incident photon energy, are markedly smaller with cut-off wavelengths of 1300 nm and 1150 nm, respectively. Increase of incident pulse energy affects SC spectra giving rise to plateau-like regions stretching to ca 1000 nm.