Studies of the modal properties of circularly photonic crystal fiber (C-PCF) for high power applications

Abstract The guiding properties of a new type of photonic crystal fibers where air-holes are arranged in a circular pattern (C-PCF) with a silica matrix have been investigated. The dispersion properties of the fiber with different spacing of circle and air-hole diameter have been studied in detail. It is shown that C-PCFs with smaller values of radius and higher air-filling fraction can be used as dispersion compensating fiber. A comparison between fibers with circular and triangular lattice has also been performed, taking into account the dispersion properties and the effective area in the wavelength range between 1200 nm and 1600 nm. C-PCF can better compensate the inline dispersion for both single wavelength and broadband wavelength applications which is a unique property not observed by regular triangular-lattice or square-lattice PCFs. The fiber provides higher effective area, making it a better candidate for high power accumulations in the core of the fiber. The fiber also shows red-shifting of the first zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW), flatter dispersion slope and lower Group Velocity Dispersion (GVD) in the normal dispersion region thereby making it a better candidate for high power nonlinear applications like super-continuum generation, soliton pulse propagation etc . With the above advantages, we have considered a series study of these circular-lattice structures for various geometrical parameters and temporal pulses in order to explore the characteristics of broadband supercontinuum generation. This design study for high power supercontinuum generation will be very helpful for potential application of new sources in various fields like astronomy, climatology, spectroscopy optical tomography and sensing etc . to name a few.