Photonic-crystal fiber

Photonic-crystal fiber  -  structured optical fibres, those based on channels running along their entire length go back to Kasier and co in 1974. These include air-clad optical fibres, microstructured optical fibres sometimes called photonic crystal fibre when the arrays of holes are periodic and look like a crystal, and many other subclasses. Photonic-crystal fiber (PCF) is a new class of optical fiber based on the properties of photonic crystals. Because of its ability to confine light in hollow cores or with confinement characteristics not possible in conventional optical fiber, PCF is now finding applications in fiber-optic communications, fiber lasers, nonlinear devices, high-power transmission, highly sensitive gas sensors, and other areas. The term "photonic-crystal fiber" was coined by Philip Russell in 1995-1997 (he states (2003) that the idea dates to unpublished work in 1991), although other terms such as microstructured fiber are also used and the nomenclature in the field is not entirely consistent. More specific categories of PCF include photonic-bandgap fiber (PCFs that confine light by band gap effects), holey fiber (PCFs using air holes in their cross-sections), hole-assisted fiber (PCFs guiding light by a conventional higher-index core modified by the presence of air holes), and Bragg fiber (photonic-bandgap fiber formed by concentric rings of multilayer film). Photonic crystal fibres are a variant of the microstructured fibres reported by Kaiser et al. They are an attempt to incorporate the bandgap ideas of Yeh et al. in a simple way by stacking periodically a regular array of channels and drawing into fibre form. The first such fibres did not propagate by such a bandgap but rather by an effective step index - however, the name has for historical reasons, remain unchanged although some researchers prefer to call these fibres "holey" fibres or "microstructured" optical fibers in reference to the pre-existing work from Bell Labs. The shift into the nanoscale was pre-empted by the more recent label "structured" fibres. An extremely important variant was the air-clad fibre invented by DiGiovanni at Bell Labs in 1986/87 based on work by Marcatili et al. in 1984. This is perhaps the single most successful fibre design to date based on structuring the fibre design using air holes and has important applications regarding high numerical aperture and light collection especially when implemented in laser form, but with great promise in areas as diverse as biophotonics and astrophotonics.

Further information

1. Дианов Е.М. Достижения в области создания фотонно-кристаллических волокон и сверхширокополосных усилителей //Lightwave Russian Edition, № 1, 2004, с. 8–11.
2. Наний О.Е., Павлова Е.Г. Фотонно кристаллические волокна // Lightwave Russian Edition, 2004, № 3, с. 47–53
3. Желтиков А.М. Оптика микроструктурированных волокон. М.: Наука, 2004
4. Желтиков А.М. Дырчатые волноводы //УФН, 2000, т. 170, № 11, с.1203
5. Cicero Martelli, John Canning, Brant Gibson, and Shane Huntington, "Bend loss in structured optical fibres," Opt. Express 15, 17639-17644 (2007)
6. J. Canning, Diffraction-free mode generation and propagation in optical waveguides, Optics Commun., Vol 207, (1-6), 35-39, 2002
7. J. Canning, E. Buckley, and K. Lyytikainen, "Propagation in air by field superposition of scattered light within a Fresnel fiber," Opt. Lett. 28, 230-232 (2003)
8. S. Huntington, J. Katsifolis, B.C. Gibson, J. Canning, K. Lyytikainen, J. Zagari, L.W. Cahill, J.D. Love, “Retaining and Characterising nanostructure within tapered air-silica structured optical fibres”, Opt. Express 11 (2), pp.98-104, (2003)
9. J. DiGiovanni, R.S. Windeler, “Article comprising an air-clad optical fiber”, US Patent 5,907,652; G02B 006/20 (1998 filed 1997);
10. M. Aslund, J. Canning, “Air-clad fibres for astronomical instrumentation: focal-ratio degradation”, Exp. Astronomy, 24, (1-3), 1-7, (2009)
11. J. Canning, E. Buckley, K. Lyytikainen, T. Ryan, “Wavelength Dependent Leakage in a Fresnel-Based Air-Silica Structured Optical Fibre”, Opt. Comm. 205 (1-3), pp. 95-99, (2002)
12. Article Photonic-crystal fiber  from Wikipedia, the Free Enciclopedia. Available under the license Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike.

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