Photonic Crystal Fibre

DHAVAL GAMI(08BEC025),NIKHILEHSH KHATRA(08BEC039)

Institute of technology,Nirma University,Ahmedabad. gamidhaval2009@gmail.com,nikhilesh_11@rediffmail.com
Abstract Holey fibers with small core dimensions and large air filling fractions offer tight mode confinement. High nonlinearity is very attractive feature of holey fibers. The objective of the project is to study the properties like confinement loss, effective mode area, non linearity and birefringence in index guiding photonic crystal fibers or holey fibers and to propose optimized parameters for better performance. We have investigated the role of confinement loss and effective mode area to design holey fibers with high nonlinearity and very low loss. We have carried out simulations by varying hole diameter, pitch, filling fraction and number of rings of inclusions. In two fold symmetric holey fibers birefringence and confinement losses have been studied. Simulations have been carried out by varying the rings of inclusions and the ratio of the diameters of the two types of holes. In holey fibres chromatic dispersion can be engineered very nicely with the help of parameters like hole diameter, pitch and filling fraction. We have carried out simulations to study the dispersion characteristics of the holey fibres. Here also we have investigated the effect of hole diameter and pitch on the waveguide dispersion and chromatic dispersion.

easier than conventional fibers, and also good temperature stability of optical properties, along with low bending losses. More recently scientists from blaze photonics have reported transmission losses of about .58 dB/km (0.18 background Rayleigh scattering, 0.13 dB/km hydroxyl absorption, 0.27 dB/km excess loss associated with the geometry of the fiber.) for a solid core fiber at 1.55 um which approach 0.2 dB/km the standard single mode optical fiber. In the same context Corning, have reduced the losses in air-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) from 1000 dB/km to 13 dB/km.

I.

INTRODUCTION
Figure 1 Hollow core photonic bandgap fiber.

In the last decade, a great deal of work has been focused in photonic crystals due mainly to their optical properties. An interesting characteristic display by such structure is the selectivity of the electromagnetic field that can propagated along them, in other words the propagation of certain frequency is prohibited. Recently applications have been devise in the fields of optical communication, high resolution spectral filters, photonic crystals film (counterfeit for credit cards), photonic crystal lasers. A new type of waveguide has assure to perform in very way that traditional core-cladding fiber. Photonic crystal fibers (hollow fiber, see figure 1) promise to become the next generation of ultra-low loss transmission fiber, their also have applications in power deliveries , sensors and nonlinear optics. In commercial available holey fibers more than 95 percent of the light travels in the hollow core or in the holes of the cladding. Due to the air-holes Fresnel reflection at the end of the endfaces estimated less than 10-4 . Since up to 85 % of the fiber cross section is composed of fused silica, fusion splicing become

II.

FABRICATION

Photonic crystal fibers are made by stacking tubes and rods of silica glass into a large structure (perform) of the pattern of holes required in the final fiber. The perform is then bound with tantalum wire and then is taken to a furnace of fiber drawing tower . The furnace is filled with argon and reach temperature about 2000 oC as consequence the glass rods and tubes get soften. Later, the preform is fused together and reduced to 1mm size with hole around 0.05 mm diameter (see figure 2). In other words by increasing the furnace temperature the air hole size can be reduced. After reducing the preform to a size that is 20 times smaller the structure thus formed (cane), the hole process is repeated and spaces between the holes of 25 millionth of meter can be obtained. Defects are created by replacing tubes for solid rods (as in the

case of highly nonlinear PCF or by removing a group of tubes from the preform (hollow core photonic PCF). Since the fabrication process is quite robust complicated geometries can be achieved. For instance the geometry of the center defect can be modified by the introduction of the thicker of thinner tubes at different position around the defect.

standard fibers. A common design, easily fabricated by stacking capillary tubes, is shown in Fig. 3 The cladding region consists of a hexagonal array of air holes, with a missing air hole defining the core. Thus, the trapping of modes in the core region can also be regarded as an analogy to the trapping of electrons at defect sites in crystals, which is the origin of the term photonic crystal fibers.

Figure 3(a) The most common PCF design at present. Dark areas are air holes while white areas are silica, (b) Effective index model of the design

Figure 2 Typical fabrication process in a photonic crystal fiber. . III. TYPES OF

PCF

A qualitative understanding of the basic properties of index-guiding PCFs may be obtained by considering the effective index model depicted in Fig.3 (b). Here, the PCF structure is approximated by a step-index fiber with a core index corresponding to the base material (e.g. pure silica), and a cladding index defined as the highest effective index occurring among the space-filling modes of the perfect (defect-free) PCF cladding structure. Although this model is crude, it reveals a central difference between PCFs and ordinary fibers: Ordinary fibers have an index contrast between core and cladding which is almost constant with frequency; this is not the case for the PCFs. This is because light at shorter wavelengths avoids the air holes more efficiently, so the effective cladding index approaches that of the base material in the short-wavelength limit . In silica fibers with the structure depicted in Fig. 3(a), if the ratio between air hole diameter and inter-hole distance is below 0.4, this effect makes the fiber single-moded at all wavelengths- a property which is not attainable in standard fibers. B. Large mode-area PCFs

A. INDEX-GUIDING PHOTONIC CRYSTAL FIBERS (PCFS) In the index-guiding PCFs, light is trapped in a high-index core by a mechanism similar to the total internal reflection in

The endlessly single-mode property of PCFs with small air holes makes it possible to manufacture single-mode fibers with core diameters, and thereby mode areas, which are very large compared to the wavelength of the light. The advantages of such fibers are very low nonlinearity coefficients and very

high damage thresholds. Such fibers may be useful for high power transmission and possibly for telecom applications, where high linearity is critical. The limiting factor for the mode area turns out to be bend and propagation losses, because the small effective index contrast between core and cladding means that the light is easily scattered into the cladding modes by bends or inhomogeneities.

for making nonlinear fiber devices, and this is presently one of their most important applications. III. DISPERSION

CONTROL IN

PCFS

One of the basic properties of an optical fiber is the dispersion coefficient, D, defined

Figure 4 (a) Large Mode Area fiber, (b) Near field image of LMA fiber at 1550 nm C. Fibers with high numerical aperture In standard fibers, the light collection efficiency is closely related to the numerical aperture NA [1]

(1.2) where is the wavelength. The broadening of an unchirped pulse propagating in the fiber is proportional to the magnitude ofD at the center frequency of the pulse. Therefore, control of the dispersion properties is very important for signal transmission. Also, in many applications of nonlinear effects, the dispersion properties are of crucial importance . Due to the high index contrast between silica and air, and the flexibility of varying hole sizes and patterns, a much broader range of dispersion behaviors is accessible with PCFs than with standard fibers. For the simple structure in Fig. 5(a), it was early shown that zero-dispersion wavelengths could be varied from the infrared region far down into the visible part of the spectrum simply by varying hole size and spacing.

(1.1) Where nc,ncl are the refractive indices of core and cladding, respectively. The large index contrast between silica and air makes it possible to manufacture PCFs with large multimode cores having very large NA values,> 0.7. Such fibers are useful for collection and transmission of high powers in situations, where signal distortion is not a issue. A more important application is the fabrication of double-clad fiber lasers and amplifiers D. Highly nonlinear PCFs. An attractive property of the silica/air PCFs is that effective index contrasts much higher than in standard fibers may be obtained by making the air holes large, or by making the fiber dimensions small so that the light is forced into the air holes. In this way, strong mode confinement can be obtained, which in turn leads to enhanced nonlinear effects due to the high field intensity in the core. In addition, many nonlinear experiments pose specific requirements to the dispersion behavior of the fibers. Thus, PCFs are particularly well suited

Figure 5 PBG Fiber Structure (i) Schematic of PBG Fiber , (ii) Cross sectional view of PBG Fiber

IV.

LIGHT GUIDING IN PCFS BY PHOTONIC BAND GAP EFFECT

In a two-dimensional array of scatterers (e.g., air holes), it can be shown that in- plane light propagation in certain frequency windows can be inhibited in all directions by interference effects, provided that the index contrast between scatterers and background material (and thereby the reflection coefficient of the scatterers) is sufficiently large. These

frequency windows are commonly termed photonic band gaps (PBGs). In PBG structures, it is possible to trap radiation at point or line defects in the lattice of scattering centers.The index contrast between silica and air is too small for this effect to occur for in-plane propagation, at least in a periodic structure. However, when out-of-plane propagation in a PCF is considered, the situation is different. From elementary electromagnetic theory, the reflection from a refractive-index step becomes stronger as the angle of incidence increases. In fact, if light is incident from the high index side, reflection becomes complete above a critical angle determined only by the index contrast. This means that even small index steps may become efficient scattering centers in the transverse plane provided that the longitudinal wave vector (that is, the propagation constant in a fiber) is large enough. Thus, for a fixed value of the propagation constant, which is sufficiently large, forbidden frequency ranges (PBGs) may be found in a silica/air structure. Conversely one could say that for a given frequency, certain ranges of propagation constants are not allowed. A defect in such a P3G structure may trap localized modes at these forbidden propagation constants.

Figure 7 Schematic pictures of various photonic bandgap (PBG) fiber designs

V.

CHROMATIC DISPERSION IN PHOTONIC CRYSTAL FIBER

Information is transmitted as binary data in fiber optic telecommunication system. These binary data are nothing but the light pulses. The more the number of pulses that can be sent through the fiber and detected correctly by the receiver, the more is the transmission capacity of the system. Dispersion is a general term which is used to describe the phenomena that causes spreading of these pulses. It severely limits the transmission capacity of the system. There are four causes of dispersion. A. Intermodal Dispersion

Figure 6 Guiding principle of PBG based on multiple interference and scattering at the Bragg condition cladding modes with a higher effective index than the guided mode exists, which is not the case for index-guiding fibers. This means, that the core must be a region of lower average index than the cladding, so PBG fibers are useful for guiding light in low index materials. Another distinct feature is that while index-guiding fibers usually have a guided mode at all frequencies, PBG fibers only guide in certain frequency bands, and it is possible to have frequencies at which higherorder modes are guided, while the fundamental mode is not. In Fig. 7, four of the most important PBG fiber designs are shown.

In multimode fibers different modes have different propagation constant and hence different group velocities. Thus different modes take different time to trace the same length of fiber. This causes the spreading of pulses. It cane be overcome by using single-mode fiber. B. Material Dispersion Due to the dependence of refractive index over wavelength material are inherently dispersive. The source which is used in optical communication has finite spectral width. Now refractive index has dependence over wavelength, so each spectral component will propagate with different speeds. This leads to dispersion and distortion of pulses. C. Waveguide Dispersion

Even if we do not take into account material dispersion, propagation constants associated with different modes are wavelength dependent. This is mainly due to structure of the waveguide. Thus again they will travel at different speeds along the length of the fiber causing spreading of pulses. D. Polarization Mode Dispersion In a conventional single-mode fiber fundamental mode is two fold degenerate. Due to perturbations like stress, bend etc. the modes do not remain degenerate and intermodal dispersion occurs. Polarization mode dispersion severely affects the performance at high transmission rates.

to reviewthe progress and improvements provided by this PCFbased technology. PCFs can be incorporated as linear or nonlinear intracavity elements in fiber laser cavities with the advantages of providing large-core-area single-mode performance, high numerical aperture cladding, lowbending loss and manageable dispersion and nonlinearity. In this way, they might be used to manipulate the spectral and temporal properties of the laser beams(for example, pulse delivery, pulse compression, wavelength conversion and SC generation). C. PCF-based probes Originally, lensed-fiber technologies for optical free-space coupling were developed for the optical power coupling in fiber communications and fiber sensor systems. Lensed fibers are attractive due to their compactness, flexible design parameters and simple fabrication process. Many types of lensed fibers have been reported for optical free-space forward interconnections, such as graded-index lensed fiber, a hybrid segmented fiber and a lensed PCF, which have been shown to be remarkably useful for optical imaging systems. They can be very interesting for applications such as near-field scanning optical microscopy and endoscopic OCT. D. PCFs for terahertz guidance Terahertz radiation, in the wavelength range from 10m to 3 mm, has been employed in many applications in biology and medical science, imaging, spectroscopy and communication technology. It bridges the gap between the microwave and optical regimes, and offers significant scientific and technological potential in many fields. However, most THz systems are large and difficult to use because they rely on free space to guide and manipulate the THz pulses. Moreover, the lack of materials well suited for guided propagation at THz frequencies has also been shown as a barrier for increasing the number of THz applications. Materials such as glasses and polymers that work properly at optical frequencies exhibit unacceptably high absorption losses at THz frequencies. Several kinds of THz waveguides have been proposed and demonstrated, such as metallic waveguides, metallic wires, plastic ribbons, dielectric fibers, porous fibers and PCFs.

VI. APPLICATION

A. PCF-based sensors Fiber-optic sensors have been extensively explored in the last few decades, because they can easily satisfy the market requirements of small size, low weight and low power consumption. As discussed in the previous sections, PCFs provide new ways of guiding and manipulating light, so that the sensor performance has been improved considerably in terms of accuracy and precision. B. PCF-based laser and amplifiers Fiber lasers have been acting as a competitor to other solidstate lasers and gaining market share in different industry applications, such as marking, printing, cutting and welding. They rely on many advantages: low operating costs, nearly diffraction-limited and high beam quality, high efficiency in a maintenance-free format with a small footprint and lowweight. For kilowatt range applications, they provide an undisputable beam quality compared with other laser systems. This feature implies an enhancement of precision and processing speeds for industrial materials processing systems, and makes it possible to achieve extreme power levels by combining multiple lasers. One of the fastest growing, most promising PCF applications is the development of high-power fiber laser and amplifiers.Recent PCF developments have been enabling novel and interesting ways to properly generate, transform and deliver light, and, consequently, to improve PCF-based laser and amplifier performance. This section aims

VII.

CONCLUSION

In this thesis, the properties of photonic crystals like effective mode area, confinement loss, effective nonlinearity,

birefringence has been numerically studied and it has been proposed that a holey fiber can be used for high nonlinearity application and as a birefringent fiber. Chromatic dispersion characteristics have also been studied and it has been shown that chromatic dispersion can be easily engineered in these fibers with the available parameters. The considered photonic crystal fiber configurations are the following: Holey fiber with high values of filling fraction, birefringent type of holey fiber with two fold axis of symmetry. It has been shown through simulation that holey fibers can exhibit very high effective non linearities about 40 times higher than conventional fiber. Through simulation we have shown the range for the optimized performance in terms of low loss and high nonlinearity. By using just four rings of holes we can have loss less than that of conventional fiber (0.2 dB/km) and high nonlinearity as high as 43.41 W-1Km-1. It has been shown that birefringent can be introduced in photonic crystal fiber very simply by introducing bigger holes along one of the axis. Through simulation it has been shown that the birefringence will be high if the ratio of diameter of smaller holes to bigger holes is very low. For a holey fiber having 5 to 6 rings of holes the birefringence is higher than that of conventional birefringent type of fibers and loss are very low. . To the best of our knowledge, study of birefringence in holey fibers with number of rings as a variable has been performed first time. Chromatic dispersion characteristics can be controlled with the hole diameter and pitch in holey fibers. For proposed structure we have shown that zero dispersion wavelength can be tailored by adjusting the holey fiber parameters like hole diameter pitch and filing fraction. We have shown that flattened behavior can be easily achieved in such fibers but it is affected to a certain extent by high losses.

square lattice structure and complete simulation can be done further. ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to acknowledgement with a deep sense of heartful gratitude to Dr.Dhaval Pujara in Electronics & Communication Engineering Department of Nirma University for this valuable and faithful guidance. I also want to offer my humble gratitude and sincere thanks to all teaching staff. Last but not the least I also express my sincere thanks to all my classmates and those who helped us in making this project successful, directly or indirectly.

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VIII.

FUTURE SCOPE

In the future, photonic crystal components will by widely used in optical tele- communications. Since the invention of the concept of photonic crystal in the end of the 80s, their properties have been studied continuously. New applications are continuously being proposed and realized. In non linear holey fibers high value of effective nonlinearity is achievable. For further enhancement of non linearity doped solid core fibers can be studied, this type of techniques are used in conventional fibers. Birefringence can be enhanced by taking