Design of a Novel Mid-Infrared Single-Polarization Single-Mode Photonic Crystal Fiber with Low Loss,High Nonlinearity,and Large Bandwidth

ABSTRACT

A novel mid-infrared Ge₂₀Sb₁₅Se₆₅ chalcogenide-based single-polarization single-mode (SPSM) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with rectangular latticed circular air holes is proposed. The properties of SPSM bandwidth, confinement loss, and nonlinearity are analyzed in the 3 μm~8 μm mid-infrared region using the finite -difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The influences of different geometrical parameters on the properties of SPSM-PCF are analyzed. All numerical computational results reveal that for the optimized geometrical parameters, the proposed PCF can deliver a SPSM region of more than 2.3814 μm with high nonlinearity of 3,705 w^?1 km^?1. Therefore, such a SPSM-PCF will become an excellent candidate for mid-infrared photonic.     

Design of highly birefringent chalcogenide glass PCF: A simplest design

In this article, a new simplified structure of a highly birefringent chalcogenide As₂Se₃ glass photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is designed and analyzed by using fully vectorial finite element method. The effective indices, confinement loss, birefringence, and chromatic dispersion of fundamental polarized mode are calculated in the proposed PCF for a wide wavelength range. To maintain the polarization in chalcogenide As₂Se₃ glass PCF, we enlarged two of the central air holes and reduced two transverse air holes for achieving high birefringence. This helps in creating an effective index difference between the two orthogonal polarization modes. It is also shown that As₂Se₃ glass PCF provides lower chromatic dispersion and less confinement loss compared to silica PCF of the same structure in wavelength range 1.3 to 1.8 μm and hence such chalcogenide As₂Se₃ glass PCF have high potential to be used in dispersion compensating and birefringence application in optical communication systems. In addition to this, the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) result of the proposed PCF is also reported.     

Mid-infrared high birefringence bow-tie-type Ge20Sb15Se65 based PCF with large nonlinearity by using hexagonal elliptical air hole

A high birefringence Ge₂₀Sb₁₅Se₆₅ based photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is proposed. It consists of a central defect core surrounded by two kinds of elliptical air holes with different size. The Finite Difference Time Domain method (FDTD) is used to simulate the guided modes of the designed PCF. The properties of this PCF are investigated including the birefringence, nonlinearity, and polarization mode dispersion in the mid-infrared range. The results show that for the optimized structure parameters, the highest birefringence of 0.1176 is obtained. The maximum nonlinearity coefficients of 38390 w^?1km^?1 and 49760 w^?1km^?1 for x- and y-polarization modes are achieved.     

Dispersion characteristic of hexagonal and square lattice chalcogenide As2Se3 glass photonic crystal fiber

In this paper, we report a chalcogenide As₂Se₃ glass photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for dispersion compensating application. We have used the improved fully vectorial effective index method (IFVEIM) for comparing the dispersion properties (negative and zero dispersion) and effective area in hexagonal and square lattice of As₂Se₃ glass PCF using different wavelength windows. It has been demonstrated that due to their negative dispersion parameter and negative dispersion slope in wavelength range 1.2-2.5 μm, both lattice structures of As₂Se₃ glass PCFs, with pitch (Λ = 2 μm), can be used as dispersion compensating fibers. Further, design parameters have been obtained to achieve zero dispersion in these fibers. It is also shown that As₂Se₃ glass PCF provides much higher negative dispersion compared to silica PCF of the same structure, in wavelength range 1.25-1.6 μm and hence such PCF have high potential to be used as a dispersion compensating fiber in optical communication systems.     

New high negative dispersion photonic crystal fiber

A new high negative dispersion photonic crystal fiber is proposed. It has double-core structure. The inner core has a circle germanium-doped region. The outer core is formed by removing the 3rd ring air-holes around the core. There are two ring air-holes between the two cores, Diameter of the 1st ring air holes is bigger than that of the 2nd ring air-holes, this can make mode coupling between inner mode and outer mode and showed that the high negative PCF is the result of this structure characteristics. There are honeycomb photonic lattice in the PCF's cladding. The influence of the structure parameters deviated from the design those on the chromatic dispersion are evaluated. When the structure parameters Λ=1.50 μm, d_core=2.10 μm, d₁=0.90 μm, d₂=0.44 μm and d₃=1.04 μm, the dispersion coefficient D is −1320 ps/(nm·km) at 1550 nm. This is a new kind of chromatic dispersion compensation PCF.     

Modeling and simulation of mid-IR amplifying characteristics of Tm3+-doped chalcogenide Photonic Crystal Fibers

This paper deals with the designing of a Tm³⁺-doped chalcogenide Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) amplifier operating in the mid-IR range. The chalcogenide glass of 72GeS₂–18Ga₂S₃–10CsI (in mol%) was fabricated with the high temperature melt-quenching method, which exhibited a strong emission peak around 3.8 μm under the excitation of a 800 nm laser. By employing the rate equations and propagation equations, the amplifying characteristics of the designed PCF amplifier were worked out. It is shown that the designed PCF amplifier exhibits a signal gain larger than 30 dB and a spectral width wider than 200 nm. The theoretical models and simulation results show that the PCF presented in this work can be used in developing high efficiency mid-IR light sources.     

Novel large negative dispersion and tunable zero dispersion wavelength of photonic crystal fiber

The article describes a novel doped CS₂ core photonic crystal fiber with high negative chromatic dispersion. The proposed design is simulated through a full-vector finite element method and anisotropic perfectly matched layers. The numerical results show that we can achieve a negative dispersion coefficient of ?5600 ps/(nm km) almost at the wavelength of 1.55 μm by carefully adjusting the proposed PCF structure parameters. The proposed PCF may have great potential applications in dispersion compensating, optical parametric amplification, and optical fiber communication.     

Fabrication and characterization of Ge20Sb15S65 chalcogenide glass for photonic crystal fibers

Chalcogenide glasses are known for their high transparency in the mid-infrared (IR) range, which includes two atmospheric windows that lie from 3 to 5 μm and 8 to 12 μm, respectively. Chalcogenide photonic crystal fibers have numerous potential applications in the field of IR, such as spectroscopy, microscopy, astronomy, biology, and sensing. In this paper, Ge₂₀Sb₁₅S₆₅ chalcogenide glass was fabricated and systematically studied. Chalcogenide glass has high transmission property (>70 %), good thermal stability, and good mechanical stability. The glass transition temperature T _g is 296 °C, and no exothermic peak was associated with crystallization up to 500 °C, which indicates its suitability for fiber drawing. As a result of its excellent mechanical properties, preforms with a variety of geometrical patterns were fabricated by using mechanical drilling. The near-field intensity distribution image of the drawn fiber shows a strong light propagation confinement.     

Study of the gain saturation effect on the propagation of dark soliton in Er-doped, Ga5Ge20Sb10S65 chalcogenide fiber amplifier

We study the effect of gain saturation on the propagation of fundamental dark soliton in a nonlinear, dispersive and amplifying medium. The Er^+ 3-doped, Ga₅Ge₂₀Sb₁₀S₆₅ chalcogenide glass is used for dark and erbium doped silicon glass for bright solitons. The numerical simulations show that dark soliton doesn't split to subpulses unlike bright soliton and also the dark soliton is more stable in the presence of gain saturation and gain dispersion effects. So the chalcogenide glasses are suitable for designing all optical devices.     

Coupling characteristics of high birefringence dual-core As2S3 rectangular lattice photonic crystal fiber

A type of As₂S₃ chalcogenide glass mid-infrared dual-core photonic crystal fiber has been proposed. The dual-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) consists of two asymmetric cores. The high polarization property and the coupling characteristics have been studied by using the finite element method and mode coupling theory. Numerical results show that the birefringence at wavelength λ = 10 μm is up to 0.01386 and the coupling length can reach wavelength λ = 5 μm, 261 μm and 271.44 μm for x-polarized mode and y-polarized mode, respectively. It demonstrates that a 6.786-mm-long fiber can exhibit an extinction ratio of better than -10 dB and a bandwidth of 180 nm.     

Generation of a mid-infrared broadband polarized supercontinuum in As2Se3 photonic crystal fibers

A simplified structure of birefringent chalcogenide As 2 Se 3 photonic crystal fiber（PCF） is designed.Properties of birefringence,polarization extinction ratio,chromatic dispersion,nonlinear coefficient,and transmission are studied by using the multipole method,the finite-difference beam propagation method,and the adaptive split-step Fourier method.Considering that the zero dispersion wavelength of our proposed fiber is about 4 μm,we have analysed the mechanism of spectral broadening in PCFs with different pitches in detail,with femtosecond pulses at a wavelength of 4 μm as the pump pulses.Especially,mid-infrared broadband polarized supercontinuums are obtained in a 3-cm PCF with an optimal pitch of 2 μm.Their spectral width at 20 dB reaches up to 12 μm.In the birefringent PCF,we find that the supercontinuum generation changes with the pump alignment angle.Research results show that no coupling between eigenpolarization modes are observed at the maximum average power（i.e.,37 mW）,which indicates that the polarization state is well maintained.     

Highly nonlinear photonic-crystal fibers for the spectral transformation of Cr: forsterite laser pulses

We demonstrate novel photonic-crystal fibers (PCFs) fabricated of a highly nonlinear glass. Dispersion profiles and nonlinearity of these fibers are tailored with an array of submicron holes in the fiber core. With the PCF structure designed to provide a nonlinearity on the order of 10³ W⁻¹ km⁻¹ at the radiation wavelength of 1 μm and a fundamental-mode dispersion profile with zero group-velocity dispersion around 1.19 μm, unamplified femtosecond Cr: forsterite laser pulses are efficiently frequency-converted into the 540-1000-nm wavelength range through solitonic spectral-transformation mechanisms and four-wave mixing.     

Dispersion compensation in optical transmission systems using high negative dispersion chalcogenide/silica hybrid microstructured optical fiber

In this paper, a new hybrid microstructured optical fiber (H-MOF) based upon photonic bandgap (PBG) light guiding mechanism which can be used for dispersion compensation in optical transmission systems is designed and simulated. The H-MOF core is made up of silica glass and the holes in the cladding network are filled with As₂Se₃ chalcogenide glass. By selecting an appropriate geometrical parameters for the structure, the dispersion and confinement losses of the proposed H-MOF at 1.55 µm are calculated to be ?6700 ps/nm/km and 6?×?10^?4 dB/m, respectively. Relative dispersion slope (RDS) of the H-MOF at 1.55 µm is about 0.00347 nm^?1. The proposed H-MOF is suitable for use in wavelength division multiplexing and dispersion compensating systems in optical fiber transmission networks.     

Characteristics analysis of extruded elliptical hole photonic crystal fibers with square air-core

An extruded elliptical hole photonic crystal fibers PCF with square air-core is proposed. By using a full vector finite-element method FV-FEM and anisotropic perfectly matched layers APML, the structure and optical properties of the proposed PCF are analyzed. Simulation results show that the birefringence of the proposed photonic crystal fiber can be up to the order of 10⁻², and has a flattened dispersion from 1.20 μm to 1.80 μm. The proposed PCF may have important application in super-continuum SC generation, dispersion compensation, fiber-optic sensing systems and other aspects.     

Ge20Sb15Se65硫系玻璃光子晶体光纤的中红外色散特性

硫系玻璃与石英玻璃相比具有高折射率(2.0~3.5)、低声子能量 (<350 cm^-1)、优良的中远红外透过性能(可至25 μm)等特性.本文制备了一种在中红外具有优良透过特性的无As环保型Ge₂₀Sb₁₅Se₆₅硫系玻璃材料,以此为基质材料设计了一种三层空气孔结构光子晶体光纤,利用多极法对光纤的中红外色散特性进行了数值模拟,系统研究了结构参量孔径d、孔间距Λ 以及d/Λ 对其色散特性的影响.分析表明:通过改变包层空气孔直径d或空气孔间距Λ,可灵活的调节光子晶体光纤的零色散波长向短波或长波方向移动.通过优化结构参量发现,当Λ=3 μm,d/Λ=0.35 附近变化时,可获得3~5 μm色散平坦,且色散值小于5 ps·nm^-1·km^-1的光子晶体光纤.     

Second harmonic generation in transparent microcrystalline α-CdGa2S4-containing chalcogenide glass ceramics

Transparent glass ceramics were prepared by heat treating of the as-prepared 80GeS₂ · 10Ga₂S₃ · 10CdI₂ glass at 370 °C (T_g + 15 °C) for 72 h (labeled as GGCd10-370). The existence of α-CdGa₂S₄ crystal in GGCd10-370 glass ceramics has been testified by XRD and Raman spectroscopy. Using the typical Maker fringe technique, SHG was observed in the original transparent GGCd10-370 glass ceramics successfully, which is mainly ascribed to the α-CdGa₂S₄ nonlinear optical microcrystal. And the SH intensity is almost 0.8 times larger than that of the standard quartz reference. It can be also deduced that the thickness of crystalline layer is a little larger than the coherent length, l_c ≈ 2.7 μm.     

Optimization of microstructured fibers with germanium-doped core for broad normal dispersion range

We have numerically studied different designs of technologically feasible microstructured fibers with a germanium-doped core in order to obtain normal dispersion reaching possibly far in the mid infrared. Hexagonal, Kagome and the combination of both geometries were numerically examined with respect to different constructional parameters like pitch distance, filling factor of air holes, number of layers surrounding the core, and level of germanium doping in the core. Our analysis showed that the broadest range of normal dispersion reaching 2.81?μm, while keeping an effective mode area smaller than 30?μm², was achieved for a hexagonal lattice and a 40?mol% GeO₂ doped core. The proposed fibers designs can be used in generation of a normal dispersion supercontinuum reaching the mid-IR region.     

Design of strain compensated InGaAs/GaAsSb type-II quantum well structures for mid-infrared photodiodes

In this paper, the transition wavelength and wave function overlap of type-II In_xGa_1-xAs/GaAs_1-ySb_y quantum wells are numerically calculated using a 4-band k · p Hamiltonian model. The simulation results indicate that absorption wavelength from 2 to 4?μm can be achieved with a strain compensated quantum well structure. The transition wavelength and wave function overlap can be optimized by properly selecting the thicknesses and composition of the quantum well layers.     

Optimization of optical characteristics of In0.29Ga0.71As0.99N0.01/GaAs straddled nano-heterostructure

Designing of a nanoscale Quantum Well (QW) heterostructure with a well thickness of ～60?Å is critical for many applications and remains a challenge. This paper has a detailed study directed towards designing of In_0.29Ga_0.71As_0.99N_0.01/GaAs straddled nanoscale-heterostructure having a single QW of thickness ～60?Å and optimization of optical and lasing characteristics such as optical and mode gain, differential gain, gain compression, anti-guiding factor, transparency wavelength, relaxation oscillation frequency (ROF), optical power and their mutual variation behavior. The outcomes of the simulation study imply that for the carrier concentration of ～2?×?10¹⁸cm^?3 the optical gain of the nano-heterostructure is of 2100?cm^?1 at the wavelength is of 1.30?μm. Though the obtained gain is almost half of the gain of InGaAlAs/InP heterostructure, but from the wavelength point of view the InGaAsN/GaAs nano-heterostructure is also more desirable because the 1.30?μm wavelength is attractive due to negligible dispersion in the silica based optical fiber. Hence, the InGaAsN/GaAs nano-heterostructure can be very valuable in optical fiber based communication systems.     

Optimization of highly nonlinear dispersion-flattened photonic crystal fiber for supercontinuum generation

A simple type of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for supercontinuum generation is proposed for the first time. The proposed PCF is composed of a solid silica core and a cladding with square lattice uniform elliptical air holes, which offers not only a large nonlinear coefficient but also a high birefringence and low leakage losses. The PCF with nonlinear coefficient as large as 46 W 1 · km-1 at the wavelength of 1.55 μm and a total dispersion as low as ±2.5 ps · nm-1 · km-1 over an ultra-broad waveband range of the S-C-L band (wavelength from 1.46 μm to 1.625 μm) is optimized by adjusting its structure parameter, such as the lattice constant Λ , the air-filling fraction f , and the air-hole ellipticity η. The novel PCF with ultra-flattened dispersion, highly nonlinear coefficient, and nearly zero negative dispersion slope will offer a possibility of efficient super-continuum generation in telecommunication windows using a few ps pulses.