Flattened Chromatic Dispersion in Square Photonic

Crystal Fibers with Low Connement Losses

Feroza BEGUM, Yoshinori NAMIHIRA, S. M. Abdur RAZZAK, Shubi F. KAIJAGE,
Nguyen H. HAI, Kazuya MIYAGI, Hiroki HIGA, and Nianyu ZOU
1
Graduate School of Engineering and Science, University of the Ryukyus,
1 Senbaru, Nishihara, Okinawa 903-0213, Japan
1
Research Institute of Photonics, Dalian Polytechnic University,
No. 1 Qinggongyuan, Ganjingzi Dist, Dalian 116034, China
(Received May 11, 2008; Revised November 4, 2008; Accepted November 25, 2008)
This research presents a simple index-guiding square photonic crystal bers (SPCFs) that has a silica core surrounded
by air hole with two dierent diameters. It is demonstrated that the designed two-dierent-size hole-arrayed index-
guiding SPCFs has a ultra-attened chromatic dispersion of 0 0:9 ps/(nmkm) in a wavelength range of 1.34 to
1.61 mm and low connement loss of less than 10
7
dB/m in a wavelength range of 1.2 to 1.7 mm. It has also been
shown that the proposed SPCFs show reasonable dispersion tolerance. # 2009 The Optical Society of Japan
Keywords: photonic crystal ber, chromatic dispersion, connement loss, splicing loss
1. Introduction
A photonic crystal bers (PCFs)
1,2)
is a new class of
optical cable that enables light to be controlled in ways not
previously possible or even imaginable. As a result of their
extra ordinary properties, PCFs have become a pre-eminent
method for transmitting information and realizing optical
devices.
3)
Control of the chromatic dispersion is a very
important problem for realistic applications of optical
communication systems,
4)
dispersion controllers,
5,6)
or non-
linear systems.
7)
Index-guiding PCFs, especially, also known
as holey bers (HFs), with multiple air holes periodically
arranged around the solid core possess numerous unusual
properties signicantly dierent than that of the conven-
tional optical bers, such as wide single mode wavelength
range
8)
and great controllability in chromatic dispersion,
9)
and eective core area.
10)
Moreover, since there is a nite
number of air hole in the cladding, the guided mode is
intrinsically leaky, so connement loss exists even if other
losses are negligible. Therefore, control of chromatic
dispersion keeping a low connement loss has become the
subject of numerical and experimental investigations all over
the optical community for the last ten years.
To date, several controlling techniques for dispersion and
leakage properties have been reported
5,6,1114)
including
conventional PCFs designs with uniform optimized air holes
in the cladding,
11,12)
a modied hexagonal PCFs,
13)
square
PCFs.
14)
The PCFs design in refs. 5 and 6 signicantly
reduces the ring number of the air holes, but the design
procedure becomes complicated because four or ve rings
of dierent air hole diameters for each ring and one pitch
are needed to achieve ultra-attened dispersion. Since in
conventional PCFs,
11,12)
the ratio of air hole diameter to air
hole pitch d= is small to realize the ultra-attened
dispersion, many air hole rings are required in the cladding
region to signicantly reduce the connement loss. The
PCFs structure proposed in ref. 13 inserted extra air hole
between two consecutive air holes which impose fabrication
challenges. In our previous work,
14)
the proposed SPCFs
demonstrated ultra-attened chromatic dispersion and low
connement losses. These theoretical papers have been
primarily concerned with establishing designs that provide
at dispersion and low connement loss, and no consid-
eration has been paid to the fabrication precision required in
order to obtain the desired dispersion behavior. Under-
standing the sensitivity of the dispersion parameters to
fabrication errors for dierent structural designs is thus an
important issue. Therefore still, the demand for a simple
PCFs structure exists in order to realize ultra-attened
chromatic dispersion, low connement loss and reasonable
dispersion tolerance.
As a part of ongoing eorts in pursuit of a simple structure
for PCFs, in this research, further demonstration of SPCFs
with ultra-attened chromatic dispersion, low connement
loss and reasonable dispersion tolerence. Numerical results
shown that the proposed two-dierent-size hole-arrayed
index-guiding SPCFs has a ultra-attened dispersion of
0 0:9 ps/(nmkm) in a wavelength range of 1.34 to
1.61 mm and connement loss of less than 10
7
dB/m in a
wavelength range of 1.2 to 1.7 mm. Also, the proposed
SPCFs show reasonable dispersion tolerance.
2. Design of the Proposed SPCFs
Figure 1 shows the structure of the proposed index-
guiding SPCFs with ve rings. Figure 1 is the two-dierent-
size hole-arrayed index-guiding SPCFs. SPCFs in Fig. 1 is
composed of circular air holes in the cladding arranged in
a square array, where is the center-to-center spacing
between the air holes, d is the air hole diameter, d= is the
normalized diameters of the air holes in the cladding, and
2a = 2 d is the core length. In this design, there are
three degrees of freedom, three inner rings air hole diameter
d
1
, outer two rings air hole diameter d, and air hole pitch .
The attened dispersion can be obtained by suitable design
OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 16, No. 2 (2009) 5458
54
of these three parameters d
1
, d, and . The dispersion
characteristics are dominantly aected by the air hole sizes
of the inner rings. Therefore, after careful selection of the
inner ring air hole diameter, it is possible to achieve desired
dispersion properties. The outer two rings air hole is kept
large enough to improve the connement loss also control-
ling the chromatic dispersion.
It should be noted that the structure of this manuscript is
dierent than the one of the design in ref. 14. This paper
proposed structure is two-dierent-size hole-arrayed SPCFs
with three inner rings air hole diameter d
1
and two outer
rings air hole diameter d. On the other hand, in ref. 14 only
the rst air hole diameter d
1
is changed and rest four ring air
hole diameters d are remained same. In this paper by using
this dierent structure it is possible to get ultra-attened
dispersion with low connement loss and small eective
area.
3. Equations for Calculation
We use an ecient full vector modal solver based on
the nite dierence method (FDM)
15,16)
for analyzing the
various properties of SPCFs. Anisotropic perfectly matched
layers (PMLs) absorbing boundary are positioned outside the
outermost ring of holes in order to reduce the simulation
window and to evaluate the connement loss of the proposed
ber with a nite number of rings of holes. Once the modal
eective indices n
eff
is obtained by solving an eigenvalue
problem drawn from the Maxwells equations using the
FDM, the chromatic dispersion parameter D(), connement
parameter L
c
and eective area A
eff
can be given by
15,16)
D() =

c
d
2
Re[n
eff
]
d
2
(1)
L
c
= 8:686 Im[k
0
n
eff
] (2)
A
eff
=
Z
o
o
Z
o
o
[E[
2
dx dy

2
Z
o
o
Z
o
o
[E[
4
dx dy
(3)
where, Re[n
eff
] is the real part of n
eff
, is the wavelength
and c is the velocity of light in vacuum. E is the electric eld
derived by solving Maxwells equations. Im[k
0
n
eff
] is the
imaginary part of, k
0
= 2=, the free space wave number.
The material dispersion given by Sellmeier equation is
directly included in the calculation. Therefore, D() in
eq. (1) corresponds to the total dispersion of the PCFs.
4. Simulation Results of SPCFs
4.1 Optimum properties
Figures 2(a)2(c) shows the wavelength dependence
ultra-attened chromatic dispersion, connement loss, and
eective area characteristics of the proposed SPCFs struc-
ture, respectively for the ve-ring shown in Fig. 1. In Fig. 1,
2a
d 1
d
Fig. 1. Proposed two-dierent-size hole-arrayed index-guiding
SPCFs with ve air hole rings. Where the geometrical parameters
of the small air hole diameter d
1
, large air hole diameter d, and
pitch .
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 2. Wavelength dependence properties of the ve-rings
SPCFs (a) Chromatic dispersion (b) connement loss, and (c)
eective area curve for optimum parameters: = 2:4 mm,
d
1
= = 0:354, d= = 0:85.
OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 16, No. 2 (2009) F. BEGUM et al. 55
only three inner rings air hole diameters are varied and the
outer two rings the air hole diameters remained same, where
d
1
= = 0:354, d= = 0:85, for a xed pitch = 2:4 mm.
It is found that the wavelength range for which the SPCFs
ultra-attened chromatic dispersion 0 0:9 ps/(nmkm) is
from 1.34 to 1.61 mm. The connement loss is less than
10
7
dB/m in the wavelength range of 1.2 to 1.7 mm. The
large value of d= is selected for better eld connement.
The eective area is 15.21 mm
2
at 1.55 mm. These values are
small compared to that of conventional bers (about
86 mm
2
), at 1.55 mm wavelength.
Table 1 shows a comparison between properties of
proposed two-dierent-size hole-arrayed SPCFs and three
hexagonal PCFs (HPCFs) design of ref. 6, considering the
ultra-attened dispersion range, connement loss, eective
area, and number of design parameters including the number
of air hole rings layer. N
r
, N
d
, and N

correspond to the
number of rings, air hole diameters, and pitches used in
PCFs design, respectively. From Table 1, it should be
pointed out that for getting ultra-attened dispersion and low
connement loss this paper proposed SPCFs is used only
two dierent types of air hole diameters. On the other hand,
the HPCFs design F1 and F2 is used four and ve dierent
types of air hole diameters. Therefore from the design point
of view this paper proposed SPCFs structure is simpler than
design F1 and F2, because here is needed less number of
geometrical parameter. Also the proposed SPCFs conne-
ment loss is lower than design F1 and F2 which has been
shown in Table 1. Again from Table 1 it should be noted
that beside ultra-attened dispersion it is possible to get low
connement loss and small eective area by this paper
proposed SPCFs structure compared with design F3. And for
this small eective area, nonlinear coecient value of the
proposed SPCFs will be higher than design F3.
The x polarization fundamental-mode distribution of the
proposed SPCFs corresponding to = 1:55 mm is also
shown in Fig. 3. In Fig. 3, the optimum parameters of
SPCFs are = 2:4 mm, d
1
= = 0:354, and d= = 0:85. It
is clear that the mode eld distribution is almost circular and
conned well within the second ring since no signicant
leakage is evident outside the second ring.
4.2 Inuence of the air hole pitch, inner and outer hole
diameter
Figure 4 depicts the chromatic dispersion as a function of
wavelength for the ve-ring SPCFs in Fig. 1. It has been
reported in ref. 12 that in an optimized ber draw, 1%
variations in air-hole diameter may occur. To account for
this unavoidable parameter variation during the fabrication
process, the parameters d
1
, d
2
, and are varied by 2%
from their optimum values. Figure 4(a) presents the eect
of changing air hole pitch from 1 to 2% on the
chromatic dispersion behavior with d
1
= = 0:354 and
d= = 0:85. It is seen that in this case of an already at
dispersion, an error in the pitch dimension mainly results in
a shift towards a lower value of the dispersion parameter.
This can be used to achieve a slightly normal or anomalous
at dispersion from the same stacked preform. Figure 4(b)
shows the eect of changing three inner hole diameter d
1
=
from 1 to 2% on the chromatic dispersion behavior with
= 2:4 mm and d= = 0:85. The dimension of the rst ring
represents the main contribution to the overall dispersion
slope, and particular care must be applied to try and match
the optimum value, if a at dispersion behavior is required.
It can be observed that the dispersion level is varied, the
wavelength attened behavior is not changed for dierent
d
1
. Consequently, ultra-attened dispersion can be designed
to dierent levels just by varying of d
1
for dierent
applications. Figure 4(c) shows the eect of changing outer
two rings diameter d= from 1 to 2% on the chromatic
dispersion behavior with = 2:4 mm and d
1
= = 0:354.
The inuence of the outer two rings of holes is almost
Table 1. Comparison of the properties of proposed SPCFs with other PCFs design.
PCFs
design
D [ps/(nmkm)]
at = 1:5{1:6 mm
L
c
(dB/m)
at = 1:55 mm
A
eff
(mm
2
)
at = 1:55 mm
Design
parameters
Ref. 6, F1 0 0:1 3:8 10
3
8.75 N
r
= 4, N
d
= 4, N

= 1
Ref. 6, F2 0 0:1 1:1 10
4
8.3 N
r
= 5, N
d
= 5, N

= 1
Ref. 6, F3 0 0:1 1:6 10
5
21.9 N
r
= 5, N
d
= 2, N

= 1
Proposed
SPCFs
0 0:87 3:2 10
9
15.21 N
r
= 5, N
d
= 2, N

= 1
+
D: Chromatic dispersion. L
c
: Connement loss. A
eff
: Eective area.
Fig. 3. Optical eld distribution at 1.55 mm wavelength, at
= 2:4 mm, d
1
= = 0:354, d= = 0:85.
56 OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 16, No. 2 (2009) F. BEGUM et al.
negligible. This is because the chromatic dispersion is not
aected signicantly by outer two rings but inner rings.
Therefore, from designing point of view, a large value of d
is just selected for good eld connement.
Another important parameter to consider is a splice loss,
because little bit large splice loss values are expected due
to the mode eld diameter (MFDs) mismatch between
the proposed SPCFs and conventional single mode bers
(SMFs). The splice loss between proposed SPCFs and SMFs
is theoretically evaluated according to the denition
17)
and
its spectral variation is illustrated in Fig. 5. Figure 5 shows
the splice loss between the SPCFs and SMFs using the
well-known formula:
17)
L
s
= 20 log
10
2w
SMF
w
PCF
w
2
SMF
w
2
PCF
dB (4)
where w
SMF
and w
PCF
are the MFDs of the SMFs and PCFs,
respectively. The MFDs of the SPCFs for the designed
parameters is found to be 4.07 mm at a wavelength of
1.55 mm using the ITU-T Petermann II denition.
18)
The
splice loss calculated at 1.55 mm is 3.43 dB considering the
MFDs of the SMFs is 10.5 mm. But the splicing loss may not
be important due to the new ber connecting techniques
19)
demonstrated recently.
It should be noted that in this manuscript, with attened-
dispersion, connement loss and eective area another
important optical property, a splice loss is considered which
was not considered in ref. 14. It is noticed that the calculated
splice loss of ref. 14 is about 5.87 dB at 1.55 mm considering
the MFDs of the SMFs is 10.5 mm. From this result it is
found that splice loss of this paper proposed two-dierent-
size hole-arrayed index-guiding SPCFs is lower than in
ref. 14 due to the relatively large MFDs of the proposed
SPCFs. Considering this one as one of the important
parameter for practical realization, there is a signicant
improvement on splicing loss for about half the value
compared to the one of reported SPCF design in ref. 14. This
is one of the signicant advantages of this proposed index-
guiding SPCFs compared with the SPCFs structure of
ref. 14. Furthermore, as being one of the important infor-
mation for practical realization, fabrication tolerance is
mentioned in this manuscript while this was not mentioned
in ref. 14. It should be noted that the inuence of the outer
two rings of holes of the proposed SPCFs is almost
negligible as can be seen in Fig. 4(c). Moreover, it can be
observed that the dispersion level is varied; the wavelength
attened behavior is not changed for dierent d
1
as
demonstrated in Fig. 4(b). Hence, these dispersion variation
levels are within the acceptable range for practical applica-
tion.
The proposed index-guiding SPCFs with ultra-attened
dispersion have relatively small eective area and would be
useful for optical communication systems. The advantage of
our structure is the fact that is much simpler from the design
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 4. Chromatic dispersion properties of the ve-rings SPCFs
for (a) changing (b) changing d
1
= and (c) changing d= with
the optimum curve, = 2:4 mm, d
1
= = 0:354, d= = 0:85.
Fig. 5. Spectral variation of splice loss between designed SPCFs
and conventional SMFs over 1.21.7 mm wavelength range,
assuming mode eld diameter of the SMFs is 10.5 mm.
OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 16, No. 2 (2009) F. BEGUM et al. 57
point of view, in comparison to previous designs because it
contains less number of design parameters.
5. Conclusions
SPCFs with ultra-attened chromatic dispersion and low
connement loss has been reported. It has been shown
through numerical simulation results that the designed two-
dierent-size hole-arrayed index-guiding SPCFs has a ultra-
attened dispersion of 0 0:9 ps/(nmkm) in a wavelength
range of 1.34 to 1.61 mm, low connement loss of less than
10
7
dB/m in a wavelength range of 1.2 to 1.7 mm. It has
also been shown that the proposed SPCFs show reasonable
dispersion tolerance. The proposed index-guiding SPCFs
may be suitable for applications as a chromatic dispersion
controller, dispersion compensator, as a candidate for
nonlinear optical systems and so on.
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