Photonic crystal fiber with high birefringence and low confinement loss

In this paper, a highly birefringent index-guiding photonic crystal fiber with low confinement loss is proposed by enlarging the central row of air holes in the structure. By employing the multipole method, properties of this structure, including the effective index, birefringence and confinement loss, are investigated. Simulation results indicate that high birefringence of 1.65 × 10⁻³ can be reached at the wavelength of 1.55 μm, and a low confinement loss on the order of 10⁻⁶ dB/km can be achieved at the same wavelength. Moreover, the impacts of air hole sizes on birefringence and confinement loss are also analyzed in detail.