We review the dynamics of soliton self-frequency shift induced by Raman gain in special solid-core photonic bandgap fibers and its consequences in terms of supercontinuum generation. These photonic bandgap fibers have been designed to allow nonlinear experiments in the first bandgap without suffering from significant loss even when working close to the photonic bandgap edge. We studied experimentally, numerically, and analytically the extreme deceleration of the soliton self-frequency shift at the long-wavelength edge of the first transmission window. This phenomenon is interpreted as being due to a large variation of the group-velocity dispersion in this spectral range and has been obtained with no significant power loss. Then, we investigated experimentally and numerically the generation of supercontinuum in this kind of fibers, in both spectral and temporal domains. In particular, we demonstrated an efficient tailoring of the supercontinuum spectral extension as well as a strong noise reduction at its long-wavelength edge. 1. Introduction Solid-core photonic bandgap (PBG) fibers are one class of microstructured optical fibers in which light is confined in a low-index solid core by the PBGs of the cladding [1]. In the case of two-dimensional PBGs, the periodic microstructured cladding is usually composed of periodic high-index inclusions embedded in a low-index background [1]. The core region then corresponds to a defect (lack of inclusion) in the center of the periodic structure. Because of the intrinsic nature of the PBG waveguidance, the fiber transmission properties are characterized by discrete spectral bands [1, 2] in which the group-velocity dispersion (GVD), attenuation, and effective mode area of the fundamental core mode are strongly wavelength dependent [3], especially near the PBG edges [1, 4]. These singular characteristics are thus of particular interest in the field of nonlinear (NL) fiber optics. The potential of solid-core PBG fibers for NL propagation experiments has already been pointed out by the report of soliton propagation and phase-matched dispersive wave generation [5, 6], even across different PBG [7]. Degenerate four-wave mixing [8], frequency doubling and tripling [9], and supercontinuum (SC) generation across adjacent PBGs have also been investigated numerically [10]. In this paper, we present an overview of our recent work showing how the particular properties of solid-core PBG fibers can influence soliton propagation and SC generation. First, we detail the linear properties of the fabricated solid-core PBG fibers under
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