Modified design of photonic crystal fibers with flattened dispersion

We present a modified method to design photonic crystal fibers with flattened dispersion characteristics. By replacing the circular air-holes of the first central ring with elliptic air-holes, we observe a more flattened dispersion curve. Plane-wave expansion (PWE) method is used to analyze the dispersion property in a high-index core PCF. The simulation results are presented, and ultra-low and ultra-flattened dispersion curves over wide wavelength range are demonstrated.     

Contra-directional coupling between two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguides

The contra-directional coupling between two photonic crystal (PC) waveguides is studied, using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. A design of contra-directional coupler is presented and its transmission properties are investigated. The device can be used as an add/drop filter. It is also shown that the coupled mode theory is suitable to study the photonic crystal waveguide coupler.     

Highly birefringent photonic crystal fibers with flattened dispersion and low effective mode area

A highly birefringent index-guiding photonic crystal fibers with flattened dispersion and low effective area is proposed by introducing elliptical air holes in the cladding and small holes both in the core area and in the cladding. With the plane wave expansion (PWE) method, the birefringent, dispersion and effective area of the fundamental modes in such photonic crystal fibers are analyzed in detail. The simulation result shows that high birefringence with a magnitude of the order of 10⁻³, flattened chromatic dispersion from 1100 nm to 1800 nm and low effective area (which mean high nonlinearity) are obtained. Furthermore, the influences on the birefringence and dispersion by geometrical parameters have also been discussed and a modest number of design parameters are given.     

Analysis on the efficiency of parallel FDTD method and its application in two-dimensional photonic crystal

A new kind of parallel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is used to calculate and analyze the transmission properties of photonic crystal. The effectiveness and the accuracy of parallel FDTD method were proved by the typical two-dimensional sine wave. The result shows that parallel FDTD method, which can save time effectively in electromagnetic problems with large size and long time, performs as accurate as the series one. This method, whose results shows that the photonic band gap normalized frequency moves to the low-frequency direction with the enlargement of the section area of the square cylinder and that the band gap gets thinner, is applied to simulate and analyze the two-dimensional photonic crystal and gives calculating method and analyzing accordance to calculate and analyze large-sized photonic crystal structure.     

Achieving both high birefringence and low leakage loss in double-clad photonic crystal fibers

In this paper, a novel double-clad photonic crystal fiber (DC-PCF) is proposed for achieving both high birefringence and low leakage loss. According to numerical simulation of the proposed PCF, the extraordinarily high birefringence (over 2×10⁻²) and low leakage loss of the order of 0.0001 dB/km over a large wavelength range are achieved simultaneously. Single-polarization single-mode (SPSM) operation with low leakage loss is also discussed and can be realized and optimized in the PCF by adopting suitable structure parameters.     

Supercontinuum generation in square photonic crystal fiber with nearly zero ultra-flattened chromatic dispersion and fabrication tolerance analysis

This paper presents a simple index-guiding square photonic crystal fiber (SPCF) where the core is surrounded by air holes with two different diameters. The proposed design is simulated through an efficient full-vector modal solver based on the finite difference method with anisotropic perfectly matched layers absorbing boundary condition. The nearly zero ultra-flattened dispersion SPCF with low confinement loss, small effective area as well as broadband supercontinuum (SC) spectra is targeted. Numerical results show that the designed SPCF has been achieved at a nearly zero ultra-flattened dispersion of 0 ± 0.25 ps/(nm·km) in a wavelength range of 1.38 μm to 1.89 μm (510 nm band) which covers E, S, C, L and U communication bands, a low confinement loss of less than 10⁻⁷ dB/m in a wavelength range of 1.3 μm to 2.0 μm and a wide SC spectrum (FWHM = 450 nm) by using picosecond pulses at a center wavelength of 1.55 μm. We then analyze the sensitivity of chromatic dispersion to small variations from the optimum value of specific structural parameters. The proposed index-guiding SPCF can be applicable in supercontinuum generation (SCG) covering such diverse fields as spectroscopy applications and telecommunication dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) sources.     

High-Q microcavities realized in a circular photonic crystal slab

A series of microcavities in circular photonic crystal slabs are studied in this paper. It is shown that high quality factors can be obtained for such microcavities. For a cavity with three inner layers of air holes missing, Q factor larger than 10⁵ can be obtained. It is also worth noting there exists resonant modes with high quality factors, even for the defect-free circular photonic crystal slab, due to gradual change of the average effective index.     

All-optical analog-to-digital converters based on cascaded 3-dB power splitters in 2D photonic crystals

In this paper, a new design of a photonic crystal (PC) all-optical analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which is based on cascaded 3-dB power splitters, is presented. It has been shown that by choosing appropriate threshold values in the output ports of the 3-dB power splitters, a set of unique states corresponding to different power levels of input analog signal can be obtained. It has been demonstrated that based on the proposed approach, the design of 2 and 3-bit PC ADC can be achievable.     

Dispersion and polarization properties of elliptical air-hole-containing photonic crystal fibers

In this paper, we investigate the dispersion and polarization properties of photonic crystal fiber with one ring or more rings of elliptical air-holes using plane-wave expansion (PWE) method. By introducing three rings of elliptical air-holes, PCF with ultra-low and ultra-flattened dispersion is designed and a total dispersion curve between ±0.5 ps/nm/km from 1315 to 1855 nm wavelength range is demonstrated. Furthermore, the polarization property of these elliptical air-hole-containing PCFs is analyzed and the variation of the birefringence with the area and ellipticity of the elliptical air-holes are discussed.     

Three-dimensional FDTD method for optical pulse propagation analysis in microstructured optical fibers

We propose a three-dimensional (3D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method to analyze the pulse propagation characteristics in microstructured optical fibers (MOFs). The computation domain size is greatly reduced by adopting the technique of moving problem space. The propagating pulse is virtually held in the buffer cell of the problem space as simulation continues. This method is capable to investigate the temporal evolution of the propagating pulse. Spectral information can be obtained by Fourier analysis. As an example, the influence of the kerr nonlinearity on the optical pulse propagation in a Lorentz dispersive MOF is demonstrated. The model is also used to simulate the nonlinear interactions between the pump spectral broadening and third harmonic generations in a highly nonlinear fused silica nanowire with good agreement with the generalized nonlinear envelop equation (GNEE) model.     

Fusion splicing small-core photonic crystal fibers and single-mode fibers by controlled air hole collapse

A method based on controlled air hole collapse for low-loss fusion splicing small-core photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) and single-mode fibers (SMFs) was demonstrated. A taper rig was used to control air hole collapse accurately to enlarge the MFDs of PCFs which was then spliced with SMFs using a fusion splicer. An optimum mode field match at the interface of PCF-SMF was achieved and a low-loss with 0.64 dB was obtained from 3.57 dB for a PCF with 4 μm MFD and a SMF with 10.4 μm MFD experimentally.     

改进的全矢量有效折射率方法分析光子晶体光纤的色散特性

得到了全矢量有效折射率方法中归一化等效纤芯半径(p/Λ)随归一化空气孔直径(d/Λ)和归一化频率(Λ/λ)的变化关系，修正了p/Λ为固定值的不合理取法，得到了改进的全矢量有效折射率方法(IFVEIM).用IFVEIM计算的基模有效折射率和总色散等模式特性与多极法的结果和试验值相比较都具有很好的一致性，将基模有效折射率的误差减小了2—3个数量级.用IFVEIM详细地分析了光子晶体光纤的色散特性，得到了色散值、波长、孔间距、d/Λ之间的相互变化关系. 关键词： 光子晶体光纤 有效折射率方法 等效纤芯半径 色散     

Polarization dependent guiding in liquid crystal filled photonic crystal fibers

A theoretical study of nematic liquid crystal filled photonic crystal fibers (LCPCFs) is presented. Detailed investigations including the polarization dependent bandgap formation and the modal properties are given for LCPCFs, in which alignment of the molecules could be controlled by external static electric field. The polarization dependent bandgap splitting caused by the high index difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary dielectric index of nematic liquid crystals provides the possibility of single-mode single-polarization guiding. A polarization operation diagram is proposed to describe the guiding behavior of LCPCFs. The influence of rotation angle ? of the director of liquid crystals on the modal properties is investigated. It is shown that the polarization axis of the guided mode is determined by the rotation angle ?, which could be controlled by external electric field.     

Research on terahertz photonic crystal fiber characteristics with high birefringence

A new high birefringence photonic crystal fiber is proposed within the terahertz frequency region. It has two types of claddings, the inner is composed of six ellipse air holes arranged in a honeycomb array and the outer surrounded by circle holes. By using the full vector finite element method with anisotropic perfectly matched layers absorption boundary condition, the birefringence, chromatic dispersion and confinement loss of the fundamental mode are evaluated. The results show that the birefringence can achieve 10⁻³ when the wavelength increases from 600 μm to 900 μm. This structure will provide some reference value for the designing of high birefringence terahertz photonic crystal fiber.     

Investigation of thermal influence on the bandgap properties of liquid-crystal photonic crystal fibers

We have analyzed the thermal influence on the bandgap properties of liquid-crystal photonic crystal fibers. The bandgap parameters which affect the transmission conditions have been investigated. It is observed that the photonic bandgap can be thermally tuned, i.e. the red or blue shift of the bandgap results from the temperature dependence of the refractive index of the liquid crystal. For the planar alignment of liquid-crystal filled cladding, the ordinary refractive index plays a major role in determining the bandgap properties; the extraordinary refractive index comes into influence while the ordinary refractive index is relatively constant of temperature. The analyses agree well with the experiments results.     

Improving the performance of a photonic crystal ring-resonator-based channel drop filter using particle swarm optimization method

The optical channel drop filters (CDFs) based on photonic crystals (PCs) are believed to be the essential components for compact photonic integrated circuits and WDM systems. One of the promising designs for a PC-CDF is based on the photonic crystal ring resonators (PCRRs). In this study, different parameters of a PCRR based CDF is optimized by using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method in conjunction with the numerical method of two-dimensional (2D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) in a square lattice dielectric-rod 2D-PC. Hence a PC-CDF with ideal drop efficiency, large free spectral range (FSR) and acceptable quality factor will be proposed.     

光子晶体光纤色散补偿特性的数值研究

利用矢量有效折射率方法对光子晶体光纤（PCF）的色散补偿特性进行了数值模拟，研究发现通过调节光子晶体光纤包层的空气穴节距或空气穴大小可以灵活地设计光子晶体光纤的色散系数D、色散斜率Dslope以及κ值，可以设计在波长1.55μm附近具有较大绝对值的正常色散和负色散斜率的色散补偿光子晶体光纤，使光通信中的普通单模光纤（G.652）或非零色散位移光纤(G.655)在1.55μm低损耗窗口得到较好的色散补偿.数值模拟和分析表明色散补偿光子晶体光纤的研制具有很大的发展潜力. 关键词： 光子晶体光纤 色散 色散斜率 色散补偿     

On the investigation of field and power through photonic crystal fibers - A simulation approach

An investigation of different types of photonic crystal fibers (PCFs), in respect of mode formation, is presented using computer simulations. In the investigative approach, we numerically solved Maxwell's equations for PCFs. In particular, we performed modal analysis for three different types of PCFs, namely Bragg fibers, index-guiding PCFs and photonic bandgap PCFs. Through simulations, we demonstrated the distribution of electric/magnetic fields as well as the propagation of power in different types of PCF structures. Simulation results reveal potentials of implementing PCFs (over conventional fibers) for the guidance of electromagnetic waves in nanophotonic waveguidance systems.     

一种新型的多包层光子晶体光纤的分析方法

传统有效折射率方法只能模拟具有相同空气孔大小的单包层光子晶体光纤.针对这一问题,提出了一种改进的有效折射率法,能够计算具有不同孔径的多包层光子晶体光纤的传输特性.并用此方法对三包层光子晶体光纤的基模有效折射率和色散等特性进行了数值模拟,结果与多极法模拟出的结果符合得很好.这种改进的有效折射率法拓展了传统有效折射率法的适用范围,对快速准确地分析和设计具有不同传输特性的多包层光子晶体光纤提供了理论依据. 关键词： 光子晶体光纤 多包层 有效折射率方法 色散