ARTICLES

PUBLISHEDONLINE:19JANUARY2015|DOI:10.1038/NPHOTON.2014.320

Deep-ultraviolettomid-infraredsupercontinuum

generatedinsolid-coreZBLANphotoniccrystal?bre

11,21111

XinJiang*,NicolasY.Joly,MartinA.Finger,FehimBabic,GordonK.L.Wong,JohnC.Travers

andPhilipSt.J.Russell1,2

Silica-basedphotoniccrystal?brehasprovenhighlysuccessfulforsupercontinuumgeneration,withsmoothand?at

spectralpowerdensities.However,fusedsilicaglasssuffersfromstrongmaterialabsorptioninthemid-infrared(2,500nm),

aswellasultraviolet-relatedopticaldamage(solarization),whichlimitsperformanceandlifetimeintheultraviolet(380nm).

Supercontinuumgenerationinsilicaphotoniccrystal?breisthereforeonlypossiblebetweentheselimits.Anumberof

alternativeglasseshavebeenusedtoextendthemid-infraredperformance,includingchalcogenides,?uoridesandheavy-

metaloxides,butnonehasextendedtheultravioletperformance.Here,wedescribethesuccessfulfabrication(usingthe

stack-and-drawtechnique)ofaZBLANphotoniccrystal?brewithahighair-?llingfraction,asmallsolidcore,nanoscale

featuresandnear-perfectstructure.Wealsoreportitsuseinthegenerationofultrabroadband,long-termstable,

supercontinuaspanningmorethanthreeoctavesinthespectralrange200–2,500nm.

hephysicsofsupercontinuumgeneration,havingbeenstudiedNevertheless,itisalsobelievedthat,ifcarefullysynthesized,

formoreth