Design, fabrication, and characterization of holey fibers

Abstract

Since the beginning of optical fiber communications, many fiber designs, driven by the desire to extend the fiber limited performances, have been proposed. In the last decade, the most innovative concept that came out is probably the HF (Holey Fibre). This new fiber design consist of a pure silica fiber with a periodic array of air holes running along the length of the fiber. Usually, the air holes forming the cladding region are arranged in an hexagonal lattice and the introduction of a defect, absence of a hole, in the center of this periodic structure creates the core of the fiber. Over the past few years, impressive possibilities offered by this new type of fiber have been demonstrated in various fields of optical fiber technology such as single-mode fiber, high optical power guidance, polarization control, dispersion compensation, soliton propagation, continuum generation, fiber lasers and amplifiers, remote sensing, etc. In this paper, we review the technology and present our design, fabrication capability, as well as some results obtained with our HFs.