Large core holey fibers

摘要

Holey fibers provide optical propagation. In various embodiments, a large core holey fiber comprises a cladding region formed by large holes arranged in few layers. The number of layers or rows of holes about the large core can be used to coarse tune the leakage losses of the fundamental and higher modes of a signal, thereby allowing the non-fundamental modes to be substantially eliminated by leakage over a given length of fiber. Fine tuning of leakage losses can be performed by adjusting the hole dimension and/or spacing to yield a desired operation with a desired leakage loss of the fundamental mode. Resulting holey fibers have a large hole dimension and spacing, and thus a large core, when compared to traditional fibers and conventional fibers that propagate a single mode. Other loss mechanisms, such as bend loss and modal spacing can be utilized for selected modes of operation of holey fibers.

主权项

1. An optical fiber configured to propagate a single mode at a wavelength, λ, the optical fiber comprising:
a core region having a core size, 2ρ; and a cladding region surrounding said core region, said cladding region comprising a plurality of cladding features disposed in a matrix, said matrix having a refractive index different from refractive indices of said plurality of cladding features, said plurality of cladding features having an average spacing, Λ, and an average size, d, said plurality of cladding features arranged in a number of rows, N, said plurality of cladding features substantially confining propagation of said single mode to said core region, wherein said average size, d, of said plurality of cladding features is greater than about 60% of said average spacing, Λ, of said plurality of cladding features, and wherein the number of rows N is greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to 4.