James C. Fajardo

Photonic Crystal Fibers: Effective-Index and Band-Gap Guidance

Conventional telecommunication optical waveguide glass fiber is the backbone of the internet revolution. This highly optimized and highly transparent waveguide consists of a higher refractive index core glass inside a lower index clad glass. Light is localized in the core by total internal reflection (TIR) at the core/clad boundary. The transmission distance between amplifiers of today’s fibers, about 80–120 km, is limited in part by the small but nonzero absorption and scattering of the fiber. Longer transmission lengths could be possible by increasing the power at each amplifier, but this is limited by optical nonlinearity of the glass in the fiber.

Group velocity dispersion measurements of microstructured fibers

Summary form only given. There has been great recent interest in microstructured fibers that consist of a regular arrangement of holes stretched along silica or air core. These fibers can guide light either by opening a photonic bandgap or, in the case of silica core, by total internal reflection. Microstructure fibers have unique dispersion properties that can be engineered by their structural parameters. It is important to have reliable theoretical model for successful design of fibers with desired properties. We measured GVD in three types of microstructured fibers and compared the data with the results from theoretical simulation made with MIT Photonic-Band package.