Analysis of amplification properties of a photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

In this work, effects of geometrical parameters and dopant concentration on amplification performance of Yb doped photonic crystal fiber amplifiers (YDPCFAs) are investigated. To this end, numerical results obtained from fully vectorial effective index method, are combined with conventional rate equations. The variation of the normalized frequency of the photonic crystal fiber with respect to air filling factor for different air hole spacing are depicted. Using obtained results, the single-mode region at signal and pump wavelengths are determined. In addition, the influence of dopant concentration on the maximum gain and optimum length are investigated. It is shown that by changing photonic crystal fiber cross-section parameters such as pitch and air filling factor, rather than increasing dopant concentration, one can obtain a higher gain at shorter optimum length. These results are useful for the design of YDPCFAs with less nonlinearity effects such as cooperative up conversion and Yb3+ ion quenching.