Abstract

We present a new kind of broadband continuous-wave source which outperforms any other broadband superluminescent or amplified spontaneous emission source both in terms of output spectral density and bandwidth. Our source covers the wavelength band of interest for fiber applications (from 1450 to 1625 nm) and has an output power of approximately 1.3 W. Additionally, it features a good power stability and we believe it might have very interesting applications in fiber sensing, for instance to avoid the need of amplification in the interrogation of remote Bragg gratings or to improve the resolution and dynamic range of optical coherence tomography setups.