FIVE LAYER HOLEY PCF STRUCTURE AND ITS

PROPAGATION CHARACTERISTICS

by

AmritMandal (1347931004)

Ankit Mishra (1347931006)

GajendraPratap Singh (1347931011)

Submitted to the Department of

Electronics& communication Engineering

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Bachelor of Technology

In

Electronics & Communication Engineering

Rajshree Institute of Management and Technology

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University

April,2017

i
 CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Project Report entitled PCF Structure & their Propagation
Characteristics which is submitted by AmritMandal, Ankit Mishra
&GajendraPratapSinghin partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree B.
Tech. in Department of Electronics &Communication Engineering of Dr.
A.P.J.AbdulKalam Technical University, is a record of the candidate own work carried out
by him under our supervision. The matter embodied in this thesis is original & has not
been submitted for the award of any other degree.

Date: Supervisor:

ii
 DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my
knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another
person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any
other degree or diploma of the university or other institute of higher learning, except where
due acknowledgment has been made in the text.

Signature

Name

Roll No.

Date

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It gives us a great sense of pleasure to present the report of the B. Tech Project undertaken
during B. Tech. Final Year. We owe special debt of gratitude to Professor Mr. Ankur
Gupta, Department of Electronics& Communication Engineering, College of Engineering,
Bareilly for is constant support and guidance throughout the course of our work. His
sincerity, thoroughness and perseverance have been a constant source of inspiration for us.
It is only his cognizant efforts that our endeavors have seen light of the day.

We also take the opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of Professor

Mr.MazharAhemadZuberi, Head Department of Electronics & communication
Engineering, College of Engineering, Bareilly for his full support and assistance during the
development of the project.

We also do not like to miss the opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of all faculty
members of the department for their kind assistance and cooperation during the
development of our project. Last but not the least, we acknowledge our friends for their
contribution in the completion of the project.

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 ABSTRACT
In this project we list photonic crystal fiber (PCF) structure having circular holes of
constant radius.It is observed that the proposed structures exhibit lower waveguide
dispersion, birefringence and confinement loss than the conventional optical fiber structure
over a small range of wavelengths.The simulations of the proposed structures are carried
out using OptiFDTD simulator with full-vector mode solver using FDTD method and the
results are compared with the conventional optical fiber.

After the comparing the simulation result of dispersion and confinement loss is very low
compare to conventional optical fiber. The value of birefringence is very high in propose
structure result over a small range of wavelength.In a conventional optical fiber, the low
dispersion loss is obtained only at 1.3 m wavelength but in PCF structure we get low
dispersion over a different wavelengths.

So, the proposed structures are suitable for long distance optical communications or high
data rate data transfer applications.The future work of this project is, we will get minimum
dispersion loss over a different wavelengths by reducing and increasing the hole diameter
which on surface of cladding.

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 Table of Contents
CERTIFICATE....ii

DECLARATION.iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT..iv

ABSTRACT..v

LIST OF TABLE..viii

LIST OF FIGURESxi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..x

LIST OF SYMBOLS...xi

Chapter 1: Introduction...1
1.1 Introduction....1
1.1.1 Basic Principles of PCF ....3

1.1.2 One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals: Bragg Mirrors........3

1.1.3 Two and Three Dimensional Photonic Crystals .......3

1.2 Classification of PCF......4

1.2.1 Index guiding fiber........5
1.2.2photonic band- gap fiber.......5

1.3 properties of PCF...7

1.3.1Single mode property................7

1.3.2 Dispersion..8

i. Material Dispersion......8
ii. Dispersion in waveguides9
iii. Group-Velocity Dispersion..................9

1.3.3Dispersion Management......10

1.3.4 Dispersion Problem and Its Solution...........10

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 1.3.5 Confinement loss.....10

1.3.6 Birefringence...12

1.3.7 Propagation losses of Birefringence............13

1.4 Application of PCF...13

1.4.1 Dispersion tailoring.....13

1.4.2 Highly birefringent fibers........14

1.4.3 Photonic Crystal Fiber for Communication Applications...14

Chapter 2: Fabrication..15

Chapter 3: Overview of FDTD..................16

3.1.1 FDTD basics16

3.1.2 OptiFDTD simulation procedures...17

3.1.3 Analysis of photonic crystal fibers (PCF) in OptiFDTD.18

a) Create the layout representing a PCF.......19
b) Calculate the modes.21

Chapter 4: Overview of Matlab21

4.1.1 MATLAB's Power of Computational Mathematics....22

4.1.2 Features of MATLAB.....22

4.1.3 Uses of MATLAB...23

Chapter 5:Proposed PCF Structures...23

5.1.1 PCF structure...23

Chpter 6: Simulation results.....24

6.1.1 Results of PCF structure..25

Chapter 7: Conclusion...27

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 7.1.1
Summary..............27

7.1.2 Future work.27

References...29

viii
 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1: Schematic representations of cross sections through (a) a conventional optical
bre and (b) a solid core photonic crystal bre2

Figgure1.2: Three examples of photonic crystal fiber.4

Figure 1.2 Types of PCF structure7

Figure 1.3 Effect of birefringence13

Figure 1.4 Fabrication process.16

Figure 3.1 FDTD simulation flow chart in optiFDTD.18

Figure 4.1 PCF with five layers of air holes...24

Figure 5.1 Dispersion curve of conventional structure25

Figure 5.2 Confinement loss curve of PCF structure...26

Figure 5.3 Birefringence curve for PCF structure26

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 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
PCF: Photonic Crystal Fiber

FDTD: Finite Difference Time Domain

TIR: Total Internal Reflection

M-TIR: Modified Total Internal Reflection

PBG: Photonic Band-Gap

HF: Holey Fiber

SMF: Single Mode Fiber

GVD : Group Velocity Dispersion

ZWD : Zero Wavelength Dispersion

DCF :Dispersion Compensating Fiber

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 LIST OF SYMBOLS
n : Refractive Index

: Attenuation Constant

: Propagation Constant

: Nonlinear Parameter

D : Dispersion

DM : Material Dispersion

DW : Waveguide Dispersion

: Lattice Constant

d : Diameter of Air-Hole

: Angular Frequency

: Wavelength

Vg: Group velocity

xi
Chapter 1:Introduction
1.1 Introduction

The idea of photonic crystals originated in 1987 from work in the field of the strong
localization of light and in the inhibition of spontaneous emission. It was subsequently
shown that in periodic arrangements of ideally lossless dielectrics, the propagation of light
can be totally suppressed at certain wavelengths, regardless of propagation direction and
polarization. This inhibition does not result from absorption but rather from the periodicity
of the arrangement. The density of possible states for the light vanishes, so that even
spontaneous emission becomes impossible. Such periodic arrangements of dielectrics have
been called photonic crystals. The first fiber with a photonic crystal structure was reported
by Philip St. J. Russell in 1995. Even if it was a very interesting research development, the
first PCF did not have a hollow core, as shown in Fig. 1.1, and, consequently, it did not
rely on a photonic band-gap for optical confinement .

In this project, an overview of properties of optical bres that are important for
understanding of this project, and introduce the particular properties of photonic crystal
bres, that are the main subject of this work. The total-internal reflection has been popular
for a long time. The capability of manufacturing materials such as silica into very pure,
very small, and good strands has only just come into knowledge. With such advancements
in the manufacturing, the standard fibers loss and dispersion is reduced. Researchers have
recently searched a new kind of optical fiber known as photonic crystal fibers. These
Fibers are with a periodic arrangement of low-index material in a core and in background
with higher refractive index . The background material in PCFs is mostly un-doped silica
and the low-index region is provided by air-holes running along their total length.

Conventional optical bres guide light through total internal reection (TIR)
When light is incident on a boundary of two materials of dierent refractive indices, some
light is reected and some is refracted. When light in a high-index material approaches the
boundary with a material of lower refractive index approaching parallel, known as the
critical angle, the refracted light travels along the boundary. At greater angles than this to
the normal to the boundary all the light is reected back into the material. Optical bres in
their simplest form achieve guidance through TIR by consisting of two regions: a high-
index core and a cladding region of slightly lower refractive index enabling TIR along
1
their length. Both materials used for the core and cladding are generally fused silica with
the addition of dierent dopants to change the refractive index slightly. Long haul
communications bres consist of a germanium-doped core and pure silica cladding. The
germanium doping gives a slightly higher refractive index than that of pure silica. Other
dopants which raise the refractive index of silica are aluminum, phosphorus and nitrogen,
whereas uorine and boron lower the refractive index. The index-lowering dopants can be
used to form low index claddings around cores formed from pure silica.

In 1996, a new kind of optical bre was reported which, instead of having a cladding
region formed from one glass, had a cladding region comprising an array of microscopic
air holes running along the bre length. This became known as photonic crystal bre
(PCF) and is represented schematically

Figure 1.1: Schematic representations of cross sections through (a) a conventional optical
bre and (b) a solid core photonic crystal bre.

in g. 1.1b. The array of air holes in the cladding gives PCFs signicantly dierent
guidance properties from conventional TIR guiding bres. This is because the index
contrast between the core (typically pure silica) and the cladding can be varied by altering
the size of the cladding air holes, which changes the eective refractive index of the
cladding region. Control of the eective refractive index allows signicant engineering of
bre properties such as dispersion and nonlinearity. PCFs can also display properties
which are not observed in conventional bres. For example, with certain hole size to hole
separation (pitch, ) ratios, they can only ever support the fundamental guided mode,
regardless of wavelength .

2
The solid core PCFs described above are not the only type of PCF. Another class of PCF
has a dierent guidance mechanism altogether from TIR, known as photonic bandgap
guidance . For this mechanism, it is no longer a requirement that the core have a higher
refractive index than the cladding. This allows bres to be fabricated with air cores. At this
we calculate dispersion, confinement loss and bifrengence in Hollow core photonic crystal
bres (HC-PCFs) over conventional optical fiber.

1.1.1 Basic Principles of PCF

In micro-structured fibers, the narrow silica core is surrounded by a silica cladding with
embedded air holes. For this reason, such fibers are also known as holey fibers. For
historical reasons, they are also referred to as the photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). In fact,
such a fiber was first developed in 1996 in the form of a photonic-crystal cladding with a
periodic array of air holes. It was realized later that the periodic nature of air holes is not
critical for silica-core fibers as long as the cladding has multiple air holes that effectively
reduce its refractive index below that of the silica core. In this case, light is guided by the
total internal reflection, and the air holes are used to reduce the index of the cladding
region. The periodic nature of the air holes become important in the so-called photonic
band gap fibers in which the optical mode is confined to the core by periodic variations of
the refractive index within the cladding. The core of such fibers often contains air to which
light is confined by the photonic band gap. Such true PCFs can act as a highly nonlinear
medium if air is replaced with a suitable gas or liquid.

1.1.2One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals: Bragg Mirrors

The simplest device using the principles of photonic crystals is the one-dimensional
photonic crystal, well known under the name of the Bragg mirror or the multilayer
reflector. It consists of a periodic stack of two alternating dielectric layers. Light
propagating in a direction normal to the layers undergoes successive reflection and
transmission at each interface between adjacent layers. With an appropriate choice of layer
thickness and refractive indices, waves reflected from each interface are in phase, whereas
transmitted waves are out of phase. In that case, the transmitted wave components cancel
each other out, and only the interference of the reflected components is constructive: the
light is totally reflected.

1.1.3Two and Three Dimensional Photonic Crystals

3
Photonic crystals with two- or three-dimensional periodicity can be seen as a
generalization of Bragg mirrors. The simple approach using reflection and transmission
matrices cannot be applied analytically here, and this is probably why their properties were
discovered relatively recently .The point of using periodicities along two or three
dimensions is to open up an Omni-directional band-gap: for the Bragg mirror, band-gaps at
a given wavelength usually only exist for a finite range of angles of incidence, and
propagation parallel to the Bragg layers can never be inhibited. With photonic crystals
having a two-dimensional periodic arrangement of parallel rods, band-gaps can exist for all
directions of propagation in the plane of periodicity, and for photonic crystals with three-
dimensional periodicity, propagation of light in all directions can be prohibited. When a
band-gap exists, regardless of direction of propagation and polarization, one speaks of a
total photonic band-gap.

Fig 1. 2 Three examples of photonic crystal fibers. (a) Bragg fiber, with a one-
dimensionally periodic cladding of concentric layer, (b) Two-dimensionally periodic
structure (a tri-angular lattice of air holes, or holey fiber) confining light in a hollow
core.

1.2 Classification of PCF

In this section, we have highlighted on different variants of photonic crystal cladding
fabricated so far. The objective of this section is to make familiarize with the versatility of
in photonic crystal fiber technology and maturity its fabrication technology. In Fig. 1.6

4
representative sketches of different types of PCFs are provided. However, design of a PCF
is highly dependent on its application and choice of certain materials in different bands of
wavelengths. We have considered two distinct principles of propagation for analyzing
several linear and nonlinear properties of PCF according to . They are:

1.2.1 Index guiding fiber

A photonic crystal may be periodic in one, two or three dimensions. The Bragg grating is
an example of a one dimensional photonic crystal. Its study and understanding isimportant
due to they are quite useful devices and it is easy to understand their fundamental
properties which will give an intuitive understanding of the more complex two and three
dimensional photonic crystals.

PCFs can be classified into two categories, high index guiding fibers and low index
guiding fiber. Like as conventional fibers, high index guiding fibers are guiding light by
the modified Total Internal Reflection (M-TIR) principle in the solid core. TIR is due to
the lower effective index in the micro-structured air-filled region .Photonic band-gap
(PBG) fiber are Low index guiding. It is impossible the propagation in the micro-
structured cladding region due to the PBG effect so light is confine in the low index core
only. Photonic crystal fibers are classified into two main categories:

PCFs belonging to the high-index guiding fibers category are similar to conventional
optical fibers, because light confine through a solid core by exploiting the improved total
internal reflection mechanism. In reality, by changing the geometric parameters of the air-
holes in the fiber cross-section diametrically opposite properties can be found. For
example, PCFs with a small silica core and large air-holes have better nonlinear properties
compared with conventional optical fibers, and sothey have been successfully employed in
many applications. Asymmetry has been introduced in the PCF core leading to a very high
birefringence. The dispersion properties of PCF can be controlled with high flexibility.
Zero-dispersion and ultra flattened curve can be found at wavelength in the visible range.

1.2.2 photonic band- gap fiber

Photonic bandgapbres (PBGFs) that are most important to the work in this project are
all-solid photonic bandgapbres (AS-PBGFs). These are fabricated with a cladding array
of two dierent glasses with dierent refractive indices, rather than with glass and air.

5
Historically these have suered from high loss when the bre is bent.an improved AS-
PBGF is presented with a cladding structure engineered specically to reduce bend losses.

The solid core PCFs described above are not the only type of PCF (g. 1.2). Another
class of PCF has a dierent guidance mechanism altogether from TIR, known as photonic
bandgap guidance. For this mechanism, it is no longer a requirement that the core have a
higher refractive index than the cladding. This allows bres to be fabricated with air cores.
Hollow core photonic crystal bres (HC-PCFs), and a similar class of bre with again
dierentguidance. When core has lower index than cladding than the light is confined by
photonic band-gap (PBG) which differs from total internal reflection.

The guiding of light in a photonic crystal fiber came first in 1996 in a solid-core. There are
several method used to analyze the photonic crystal fibers, as Fourier transform method,
plane wave expansion method, effective index method, beam propagation method, finite
difference time domain method, Finite Element Method etc. because of the complex
structures and properties of photonic crystal fibers Hugo et al. generate a numerical
approach based on the scalar finite element method that is applied to analyze the modal
properties, dispersion and leakage loss of photonic crystal fibers having a solid core and a
cladding region with either circular or non circular micro-structured holes

Figure 1.2 Types of PCF structure

6
1.3properties of PCF
For all the proposed structure we have investigated some properties of the PCF like
dispersion, birefringence and confinement loss etc. We will elaborate about it and then we
will discuss about the results of the structure proposed.

1.3.1 Single mode property

To know fiber is multimode or single mode V-number is used. V-number is a normalized

frequency which is if:

Veff 2.405, the fiber will be single mode and

Veff> 2.405, the fiber will be multimode fiber and is given by

Veff =2 [n02 neff2]

Where is the pitch (center to center distance between two nearest air hole), is the
wavelength, is the core (silica) refractive index and is an effective refractive index of
cladding.

1.3.2 Dispersion

Dispersionis when the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency and this media is
called dispersive media. This section describes how the cladding of index guiding PCFs
can engineered and the subsequent effect on the dispersion of the fiber. The dispersion has
many effects such as: it causes pulses to spread in optical fibers, degrading signals over
long distances also, a cancellation between dispersion. There are two types of dispersion
mechanism: material dispersion and waveguide dispersion.

i. Material Dispersion

Material dispersion occurs in optical fiber because of the interaction of various

wavelengths with the physical matter in the crystalline structure of the glass.

Material dispersion is the intrinsic dispersion of a bulk medium arising from the interaction
between an electromagnetic wave and the electrons in the medium. The proximity in
wavelength of the electromagnetic wave to the electronic resonances of the medium aect
the response of the medium. It is this which accounts for the wavelength dependence of the

7
refractive index in bulk media. As well as the contribution to the dispersion from the bulk
material, there is also a waveguide contribution to the dispersion arising from the
connement of optical waves.

The refractive index of the glass changes according to the wavelength of the optical signal,
i.e., different wavelengths travel at different path. The effect of material dispersion is that
the pulse will travel with different velocity with different wavelengths. So, the pulse will
spread over a distance simply because of the interaction of various wavelengths with the
matter in the crystalline core, this will give some portions of a pulse to arrive earlier than
other portions. As the wavelength is long, signal travels faster. It can be calculated directly
from the three-term Sellmeier formula.

neff =

ii. Dispersion in waveguides

Dispersion in waveguide is due to different refractive indexes of the core and cladding of

an optical fiber. These are two types, waveguide and chromatic, both of which are issues in

long haul fiber optic transmission systems employing singlemode fiber of step-index

construction. The dispersion at different wavelength is calculated by the formula

iii. Group-Velocity Dispersion

Consider a single-mode fiber of length L. A specific spectral component at the frequency

would arrive at the output end of the fiber after a time delay T = , where vg is the group

velocity, defined as

Vg =
8
The frequency dependence of the group velocity leads to pulse broadening simply because
different spectral components of the pulse disperse during propagation and do not arrive
simultaneously at the fiber output. If is the spectral width of the pulse, the extent of
pulse broadening for a fiber of length L is governed by

T= = ( ) = L = L2

The dispersion parameter D can vary considerably when the operating wavelength is
shifted from 1.3m. The wavelength dependence of D is governed by the frequency
dependence of the mode index. From Eq. (2.3.5), D can be written as

D= ( )= ( )

1.3.3 Dispersion Management

Optical amplifiers solve the fiber-loss problem but, at the same time, make the dispersion
problem worse because dispersive effects keep accumulating along the entire chain of
amplifiers. Indeed, long-haul WDM systems making use of amplifiers are often limited by
the dispersive and nonlinear effects rather than fiber losses. However, the dispersion
problem can be managed in practice through a suitable dispersion-compensation scheme.
This chapter focuses on several such techniques. Section 3.4.1 explains the basic idea
behind dispersion management. Section 3.4.2 is devoted to special kinds of fibers
developed for compensating dispersion in long-haul links. Several types of dispersion-
equalizing filters are discussed in this section.

1.3.4 Dispersion Problem and Its Solution

All long-haul lightwave systems employ single-mode optical fibers in combination with
distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers with a relatively narrow line width (<0.1
GHz). The performance of such systems is often limited by pulse broadening induced by
group-velocity dispersion (GVD) of silica fibers. Direct modulation of a DFB laser chirps
optical pulses in an optical bit stream and broadens their spectrum enough that direct
modulation cannot be used at bit rates above 2.5 Gb/s. WDM systems operating at channel
bit rates of 10Gb/s or more often employ external modulators to avoid spectral broadening

9
induced by frequency chirping. Under such conditions, the GVD-limited transmission
distance at a given bit rate B is obtained.

One may think that the dispersion problem can be solved for new fiber links by employing
dispersion-shifted fibers and operating the link close to the zero-dispersion wavelength of
this fiber so that D 0. Under such conditions, system performance is limited by third-
order dispersion (TOD).

1.3.5 Confinement loss

The confinement loss is a leakage loss which is an important parameter to design the finite
no. of air hole. The confinement loss (dB/km) of photonic crystal fiber is calculated using
the formula

LC = 8.686103k0Im[neff]

where k0 is the free space number and is equal to 2/ , is the corresponding wavelength,
Im[neff] is the imaginary part of neff (effective modal index number).

The losses in PCFs occur mainly due to a number of reasons, such as intrinsic material
absorption loss, Rayleigh scattering loss, structural imperfection loss, confinement loss,
and so on. Losses creping in at the time of fabrication can be reduced by careful
optimization of fabrication process. Confinement loss is an additional form of loss that
occurs mainly in singlematerial. Confinement loss is the leakage of power from the core to
the cladding. It is expressed in db/km. In both solid-core and hollow-core PCFs, it is
necessary to consider leakage or confinement losses. These are due to the finite number of
airholes which can be made in the fiber cross-section. As a consequence, all the PCF
guided modes are leaky.

For example, in solid-core PCFs light is confined within a core region by the air-holes.
Light will move away from the core if the confinement provided by the air-holes is
inadequate. This means that it is important to design such aspects of the PCF structure as
air-hole diameter (d) and hole-to-hole spacing () or pitch, in order to realize low-loss
PCFs. In particular, the ratio between the air-hole diameter and the pitch (d/ ) must be
designed to be large enough to confine light into the core. On the other hand, a large value
of the ratio makes the PCF multi-mode. However, by properly designing the structure, the
confinement loss of single-mode PCFs can be reduced to a negligible level.
10
This confinement loss can be reduced exponentially by increasing the number of air-holes
rings that surround the solid core, and is determined by the geometry of the structure. Also,
Increasing the air-holes diameter results in the increasing of the air filling fraction which
consequently decreases the confinement loss. Also by increasing the number of air-holes
rings, the confinement loss can be significantly reduced. We can also see that the
confinement loss contributes significantly to the loss of PCFs when the air-holes pitch is
small.

1.3.6 Birefringence

Holey fibers (HF) as a subgroup of photonic crystal fibers (PCF) constitute a new class of
optical fibers which has revealed many interesting phenomena paving the way for a large
number of novel applications either in the telecom or in the sensing domain. The typical
HF consists of pure silica with a periodic distribution of air holes in the cladding. In PCF
light can be guided either by effective index mechanism related to total internal reflection
or through band gap effect caused by periodically spaced air holes. HF can potentially be
made highly birefringent, because the large index contrast facilitates high form geometrical
birefringence. Various methods of introducing birefringence into HFs have been presented.
PCF with elliptical air holes or/and with asymmetric core or asymmetric distribution of
holes [6-8] in the fiber have been applied to exhibit strong birefringence. Compared with
elliptical-hole PCF, the latter two designs are more suitable for the implementation of
birefringent PCF. This is due to the fact that the shape of elliptical holes is very difficult to
be controlled in the fabrication process. We have adopted the asymmetric core design
similar to the one proposed in fig, but instead two rods in the center of the structure we
have used three ones (Fig. 1). In that way we have created highly elliptical core. In this
paper we demonstrate that by creating two fold rotational symmetry the PCFs with high
birefringence is obtained. Based on elasto-optical measurements of the polarization state
on the output of the fiber , we measure the fiber birefringence (beat length) for different
wavelengths and compare it with numerical simulations based on plane wave method .
Also temperature and strain sensitivities were evaluated. Finally, the propagation losses
measurements have shown the polarizing phenomena for longer wavelengths.

Some crystalline structure shows the property of Birefringence in which a ray of light
passing through the crystal is divided into two unequal waves are the ordinaryrayand the
extraordinary ray that will pass through at different speeds Birefringence which is a double
11
refraction, is the decomposition of a ray of light into two rays when it passes through an
isotropic materials, for example crystals of calcite or boron nitride.

Figure 1.3 Effect of birefringence

The birefringence is calculated using the formula [25]:

B=nxny,

where is the birefringence, and are the effective refractive indices of two fundamental TE
and TM polarization modes.

1.3.7Propagation losses of Birefringence

The PCF used for the experiments was fabricated by modification of conventional optical
fiber drawing process. The fiber has 7 layers of air holes and distance between the holes
(pitch) of =1.16 m and hole diameter d=0.52 m.

Proceedings

12
1.4 Application of PCF
1.4.1 Dispersion tailoring

The tendency for different light wavelengths to travel at different speeds is a crucial factor
in the telecommunication system design. A sequence of short light pulses carries the
digitized information. Each of these is formed from a spread of wavelengths and, as a
result of chromatic dispersion, it broadens as it travels, thus obscuring the signal. The
magnitude of the dispersion changes with the wavelength, passing through zero at 1.3 m
in conventional optical fibers. In PCFs, the dispersion can be controlled and tailored with
unprecedented freedom. In fact, due to the high refractive index difference between silica
and air, and to the flexibility of changing air-hole sizes and patterns, a much broader range
of dispersion behaviors can be obtained with PCFs than with standard fibers.

1.4.2 Highly birefringent fibers

Birefringent fibers, where the two orthogonally polarized modes carried in a single-mode
fiber propagate at different rates, are used to maintain polarization states in optical devices
and subsystems. The guided modes become birefringent if the core microstructure is
deliberately made twofold symmetric, for example, by introducing capillaries with
different wall thicknesses above and below the core. By slightly changing the air-hole
geometry, it is possible to produce levels of birefringence that exceed the performance of
conventional birefringent fiber by an order of magnitude. It is important to underline that,
unlike traditional polarization maintaining fibers, such as bow tie, elliptical-core, which
contain at least two different glasses, each one with a different thermal expansion
coefficient, the birefringence obtainable with PCFs is highly insensitive to temperature,
which is an important feature in many applications.

1.4.3 Photonic Crystal Fiber for Communication Applications

The rapid development of optical fiber communication has created a strong need for novel
optical components that can handle functions such as dispersion compensation and
wavelength division multiplexing. Photonic crystals offer many exciting opportunities for
developing new optical components for optical communications. The crystal structures are
very well known for their potentials for confining and guiding light in very small
structures. Photonic crystals can also exhibit strong dispersion properties that may give rise
13
to large group delay, strong chromatic dispersion, and significant polarization-dependent
dispersion for pulse propagation. Therefore, photonic crystals offer exciting potentials for
key enabling technologies in optical communication systems, such as delay elements,
chromatic dispersion compensators, polarization mode dispersion mitigators, and
wavelength add/drop filters. To realize the potentials of photonic crystals, it is critically
important to understand how photonic crystal structures can be engineered to meet the
stringent requirements of optical communications .

Chapter 2: Fabrication
Fabrication of both PCF and conventional optical bre requires rst the creation of a
macroscopic preform of the desired microscopic bre structure. These performs are then
drawn to bre on a bre drawing tower in a similar manner to the fabrication of seaside
rock . There are a number of ways of fabricating PCF performs, with the most common
being the stack and draw method . First, capillaries are drawn from glass tubes and then
stacked in a close packed array with any solid defects (such as the core)created by the
replacement of a capillary with a solid rod. This stack is then inserted into a tube
(typically 20-25mm in diameter), and put on a bre drawing tower, and drawn down to the
preforms (typically 1-4mm in diameter). These preforms provide a useful intermediate
stage before drawing to bre. The holes in the preforms are generally pressurised as they
are drawn to bre. This can maintain the structure, or allow the holes to collapse or to be
inated. It is even possible to apply dierent pressures to dierent holes by inserting
capillaries into them and pressurising the capillaries; this technique has been used to make
polarisation-maintaining PCFs.

Fabrication of PCF, like in conventional fiber fabrication, starts with a fiber preform.
PCFperforms are formed by stacking a number of capillary silica tubes and rods to form
the desired air/silica structure. This way of creating the preform allows a high level of
design flexibility as both the core size and shape as well as the index profile throughout the
cladding region can be controlled. When the desired preform has been constructed, it is
drawn to a fiber in a conventional high-temperature drawing tower and hair-thin
photonic crystal fibers are readily produced in kilometre lengths. Through careful
process control, the air holes retain their arrangement all through the drawing process and
even fibers with very complex designs and high air filling fraction can be produced.
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 Figure 1.4 Fabrication process

Finally, the fibers are coated to provide a protective standard jacket that allows robust
handling of the fibers. The final fibers are comparable to standard fiber in both robustness
and physical dimensions and can be both striped and cleaved using standard tools

Chapter 3:Overview of FDTD

3.1.1 FDTD basics

OptiFDTD is powerful, highly integrated, user-friendly software that allows computer

aided design and simulation of advanced passive photonic components. The OptiFDTD
software package is based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The
FDTD method has been established as a powerful engineering tool for integrated and
diffractive optics device simulations. This is due to its unique combination of features,
such as the ability to model light propagation, scattering and diffraction, and reflection and

15
polarization effects. It can also model material anisotropy and dispersion without any pre-
assumption of field behaviour such as the slowly varying amplitude approximation. The
method allows for the effective and powerful simulation and analysis of sub-micron
devices with very fine structural details. A sub-micron scale implies a high degree of light
confinement and correspondingly, the large refractive index difference of the materials
(mostly semiconductors) to be used in a typical device design.

3.1.2 OptiFDTD simulation procedures

The following is the flow chart for the FDTD simulation in OptiFDTD. It also details the
work flow in OptiFDTD

Figure 3.1 FDTD simulation flow chart in optiFDTD

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3.1.3 Analysis of photonic crystal fibers (PCF) in OptiFDTD

In OptiFDTD, the mode solver is combined with the FDTD engine so that FDTD
simulation can use the modal field as input directly. In addition to this integrated mode
solver, OptiFDTD also provides an independent mode solver to allow user to solve and
study the modal solutions outside of an FDTD calculation. The PCF mode solver will
mainly be used as an independent mode solver. Modal analysis requires two main steps:

a) Create the layout representing a PCF

1)Open OptiFDTD Waveguide layout Designer From the Start menu,

select Programs >Optiwave Software >OptiFDTD> Waveguide Layout Designer.
OptiFDTD_Designer window opens
2)Create a new project
From the OptiFDTD_Designer File menu, select New. The Initial
Properties dialog box appears.
3) Start Profile Designer
To define the material(s) and waveguide profile(s) that will be used in the project, Click
Profiles and Materials button in Initial Properties Dialog. The Profile Designer OptiFDTD
opens.

4) Define material in Profile Designer

Perform the following sub-steps to define the material that will be used in the example
project.

(a) In the directory under OptiFDTD_Designer1, Materials folder, right-click the

Dielectric folder. A context menu appears.
(b) Select New. The Dielectric dialog box appears.
(c) Type the following Profile name: ChannelPro1.
(d) To define the 2D profile, in the Material list under 2D profile definition,select
N=3.0.Note:
(e) 2D Profile will be used for 2D simulations:
(f) Type the following information:
(g) Layer name: Layer1 , Width: 1.5 , Thickness: 1.0 , Offset: 0.
(h) In the Material list, select n=3.0
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(i) Click Add
(j) Repeat above step (a)-(c) to add another layer that has the

following properties.

Layer name: Layer2

Width: 1.0

Thickness: 0.5

Offset: 0.

In the Material list, select n=2.5

(k) To save the defined channel profile, click Store, ChannelPro1 willbe listed under
the Channel profile folder.

6) Define fiber profile

Fiber profile is a waveguide cross section that may contain single or multiple circular
or elliptical shapes.

(a) In the directory under OptiFDTD_Designer1, under the Profiles folder, right click
the Fiber folder. A context menu appears.
(b) Select New. The Fiber Profile dialog box appears.
(c) Type the following Profile name: FiberPro1.
(d) To define the 2D fiber profile, in the Material list under 2D profile definition, select
N=3.0.
(e) To define the 3D fiber profile, under 3D profile definition:

Layer name: Core

Rx: 0.5(x-directional radius)
Ry: 0.5(y-directional radius))Type the following information:
(f) In the Material list, select n=3.0
(g) Click Add.
(h) Repeat above step (a)-(c) to add another layer that has the following properties.
Layer name: Cladding
Rx: 1.0

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 Ry: 1.0
Material: n=2.5
(i)To save the defined channel profile, click Store, FiberPro1 will be listed under
the Fiber Profile folder.
7) Set initial simulation domain properties
(a) In the Initial Properties dialog Box, click Default Waveguide button.

(b) In the Width input box, specify the initial waveguide width as 1.5m. This is
the waveguide width default setting, i.e. when you draw a waveguide in the layout
window; the drawn waveguide will has this default width.
(c) From the Profile list, Select ChannelPro1 as the default waveguide profile.
When you draw a waveguide direction, this channel profile will be linked to your
drawn waveguide
(d) In the Initial Properties dialog box, click Wafer Dimension button.
(e) Input 8.0 (m) in the Length input box
(f) Input 6.0 (m) in the Width input box
(g) In the Initial Properties dialog box , Click 3D Wafer Properties
(h) In the Substrate area, input the following information
Material: n=2; thickness: 3 (m)
(i) In the Cladding area, input the following information
Material: Air; thickness: 3 (m)
8) Click OK in the Initial Properties Dialog box, OptiFDTD Designer appears.

b. Calculate the modes

We will use our Waveguide Layout Designer to define the PCF layout, and then convert
the layout to a refractive index distribution file. The mode solver will load-in the index
distribution file and perform the modal analysis.

Chapter 4: Overview ofMatlab

MATLAB matrixlaboratory is a fourth-generation high-level programming language and
interactive environment for numerical computation, visualization and programming.

MATLAB is developed by MathWorks.

19
It allows matrix manipulations; plotting of functions and data; implementation of
algorithms; creation of user interfaces; interfacing with programs written in other
languages, including C, C++, Java, and FORTRAN; analyze data; develop algorithms; and
create models and applications. It has numerous built-in commands and math functions
that help you in mathematical calculations, generating plots, and performing numerical
methods.

4.1.1 MATLAB's Power of Computational Mathematics

MATLAB is used in every facet of computational mathematics. Following are some

commonly used mathematical calculations where it is used most commonly

Dealing with Matrices and Arrays

2-D and 3-D Plotting and graphics
Linear Algebra
Algebraic Equations
Non-linear Functions
Statistics
Data Analysis
Calculus and Differential Equations
Numerical Calculations
Integration
Transforms
Curve Fitting
Various other special functions

4.1.2 Features of MATLAB

Following are the basic features of MATLAB

It is a high-level language for numerical computation, visualization and application

development.
It also provides an interactive environment for iterative exploration, design and
problem solving.

20
 It provides vast library of mathematical functions for linear algebra, statistics,
Fourier analysis, filtering, optimization, numerical integration and solving ordinary
differential equations.
It provides built-in graphics for visualizing data and tools for creating custom plots.
MATLAB's programming interface gives development tools for improving code
quality maintainability and maximizing performance.
It provides tools for building applications with custom graphical interfaces.
It provides functions for integrating MATLAB based algorithms with external
applications and languages such as C, Java, .NET and Microsoft Excel.

4.1.3 Uses of MATLAB

MATLAB is widely used as a computational tool in science and engineering encompassing

the fields of physics, chemistry, math and all engineering streams. It is used in a range of
applications including

Signal Processing and Communications

Image and Video Processing
Control Systems
Test and Measurement
Computational Finance
Computational Biology

Chapter 5:Proposed PCF Structures

5.1.1 PCF structure

The index-guided PCF basically consists of a solid dielectric core surrounded by many
layers of air holes. The struMcture shown in Fig. 4.1 is the conventional PCF structure
which has four layers of air holes having same radii.

21
 Figure 4.1 PCF with five layers of air holes

Chapter 6:Simulation results

In this section we present the simulation results of the proposed structures carried out in
the OptiFDTD software. The wafer dimensions in the simulation are chosen for each
structure in a manner to accommodate all the air holes of the proposed structure while
maintaining the pitch factor uniform throughout the structure. The wafer chosen is of pure
silica and is set to be of refractive index n=1.46. The refractive index of air hole is set to be
1.For all the structures shown in Fig. 4.1 to Fig. 4.3 the values of the parameters are
chosen as follows :Lattice constant a=4 m, Height of triangle cell b=a sin(pi/3), Length of
domain length=11a, Width of domain width=11b, X original point of lattice c=-5b.

The boundary conditions chosen for the simulations are TBC. The mesh size for the finite
difference time domain (FDTD) simulations is x = 0.08m and z=0.08m.

We calculate the waveguide dispersion of structures by using (1.3) by taking the seventh
degree polynomial in the curve fitting tool for calculating double derivative.

22
The confinement loss is calculated by (1.4) and the birefringence is calculated by (1.5) of
all the structures.

6.1.1 Results of PCF structure

For the structure shown in Fig. 4.1 we take the value of radii of all the holes are 0.6m and
all the holes are assumed to be filled with air. The dispersion, confinement loss,
birefringence curves are as follows:

Figure 5.1 Dispersion curve of conventional structure

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Figure 5.2 Confinement loss curve of PCF structure

Figure 5.3 Birefringence curve for PCF structure.

24
Chapter 7: Conclusion

7.1.1 Summary

In this project we design PCF structures whose geometries are partially similar to the
conventional optical fiber.Weobserved that both the conventional optical fiber and PCF
structure exhibit different type of dispersion,confinement loss and birefringence over a
small range of wavelength.

In this project we have proposed a PCF structure and compare the propagation
characteristics results with the conventional optical fiber. We see that dispersion and
confinement loss is very low in Photonic crystal fiber compare to conventional optical
fiber.

It is observed that PCF structures exhibit almost negligible waveguide dispersion behavior
over a very large wavelength range and a large negative dispersion for PCF in the
wavelength range from 0.98m to 1.30m. So this structure is suitable candidate as a
dispersion compensating fiber.

We also see that the confinement loss decreases as lattice constant aincreases for PCF
structures. As constant factor increases the value of confinement loss also . So we see that
the confinement loss is almost zero.

The value of birefringence is also high in photonic crystal fiber compare to conventional
optical fiber.

PCF structure provide overall good properties in terms of the birefringence, the dispersion
and confinement loss making them suitable candidates for applications demanding such
behavior such as long distance optical communications or high data rate data transfer
applications.

10.2 Future work

Dispersion and nonlinear properties of an octagonal structure is going to be investigated

shortly. We can calculate more effective and efficient characteristics properties such as
dispersion, confinement loss and birefringence by changing the hole size (increase and
decrease the diameter) on the cladding surface.Due to change in hole area size , we get

25
zero dispersion, minimum confinement loss and high birefringence at the different range of
wavelengths. We can increase the bandwidth of the PCF due to which the long distance
optical communications or high data rate data transfer applicationsis to easy.

26
 References
1. J. C. Knight. Photonic crystal bres. Nature, 424:847851, 2003.
2. P. St. J. Russell. Photonic crystal bres. Science, 299:358362, 2003.
3. W. Snyder and J. D. Love. Optical Waveguide Theory. Kluwer Academic Pub,
1983.
4. J. C. Knight, T. A. Birks, P. St. J. Russell, and D. M. Atkin. All-silica single-mode
optical ber with photonic crystal cladding. Opt. Letters, 21(19):15471549, 1996.
5. J. C. Knight, T. A. Birks, R. F. Cregan, P. St. J. Russell, and P. D. de Sandro. Large
mode area photonic crystal bre. Electronics Letters, 34(13):13471348, 1998.
6. JhonD.Jaonnopouios, Steven G. Jhonson, Joshua N. Winn, Robert D.
Meade.Photonic crystal molding the flow of light,Second addition.
7. Ritu Sharma ,Vijay jaynyani , Rahul gupta Effect of wafer dimension on the mode
profile in PCF International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, vol2,no.
6,November 2009.

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