Highly birefringent photonic crystal fibers with selectively liquid-filled structure in cladding

Abstract

A novel highly birefringent photonic crystal fiber with selectively liquid-filled structure in cladding is proposed. The birefringence is numerically investigated with variant structural parameters and refractive index of the infiltrating liquid. The results show that high birefringence can be achieved over a wide wavelength range, and the birefringence is increased because of the symmetry destroyed further in the proposed structure. However, the confinement loss keeps the same order of magnitude even though more materials with high refractive index are filled in the cladding. By varying the refractive index of the infiltrating liquid, the birefringence is shown to be well tuned. It has the potential to be used as optical devices such as all-fiber polarization controllers and high-sensitive sensors.