Design of broadband and compact mid-infrared polarization beam splitter based on all-circular air holes with low loss

Abstract

A mid-infrared (mid-IR) broadband polarization beam splitter (PBS) based on a gallium sulfide dual core highly birefringent photonic crystal fiber is proposed. The high birefringence and dual core are achieved by introducing two kinds of circular air holes with different diameters into the fiber core. The mode coupling characteristics of the even and odd modes in the proposed dual core PBS are investigated using the finite-difference time-domain method and coupled-mode theory. The numerical simulation results indicate that, when the incident light frequency is 4.5 μm and the PBS length is 277.1 μm, a wide bandwidth of 170 nm (from 4.472 to 6.642 μm) with a polarization extinction ratio (ER) >20 dB is obtained in the mid-IR waveband. The highest ER of 112.8 dB is realized. The designed PBS will find potential applications in mid-IR optical sensing, communication, and imaging systems because of its wide bandwidth and ultrashort length.