Enhancement of the supercontinuum generation performance of a
highly-nonlinear optical fiber (HNLF) is accomplished by performing at
least one post-processing treatment on the HNLF. Particularly, UV
exposure of the HNLF will modify its dispersion and effective area
characteristics so as to increase its supercontinuum bandwidth, without
resorting to techniques such as tapering or introducing unwanted
reflections into the HNLF. The UV exposure can be uniform, slowly varying
or aperiodic along the length of the HNLF, where the radiation will
modify the nonlinear properties of the HNLF. Various other methods of
altering these properties may be used. The output from the HNLF can be
monitored and used to control the post-processing operation in order to
achieve a set of desired features in the enhanced supercontinuum
spectrum.