Abstract: A new blue extended super continuum light source is claimed. When pulses of partly coherent monochromatic “pump” radiation of essentially constant amplitude is propagating through a microstructure fibre medium within a region of anomalous dispersion of the medium, then, provided the medium has a finite nonlinear coefficient of the index of refraction, the pump pulse is subject to a modulation instability. This instability results in the generation and exponential growth of sidebands, the two closest to the “pump” frequency being the dominant ones. The modulation frequency is proportional to the square root of the power in the carrier wave. In the time domain this leads to that the interaction between the medium and the radiation results in contraction of the width of the amplitude peaks, which results in formation of a train of narrow pulses with Tera Hertz repetition rate.

Abstract: A method of packaging an optical fiber laser incorporates an optical fiber laser (11) in a matrix of a curable viscous material (15). The matrix has a loss coefficient/dissipation factor high enough to dampen acoustic vibrations and a thermal diffusivity low enough to reduce transient heat flow into the optical fiber laser.