Abstract
The low intrinsic nonlinearity and low signal latency characteristic of Hollow Core Photonic Bandgap Fibers (HC-PBGFs) have fueled strong interest for data transmission applications. Whereas most research to date has looked at improving the optical performance of HC-PBGFs (e.g., reducing the loss, increasing the transmission bandwidth and achieving well-tempered modal properties through the suppression of surface mode resonances). In this study, we address the challenging problem of scaling up the fabrication of these fibers to multi-kilometer lengths—an indispensable step to prove this fiber technology as viable. We report the fabrication of low loss, wide bandwidth HC-PBGFs operating both in the conventional telecoms window (1.55 μm) and in the predicted region of minimum loss (2 μm), in lengths that substantially exceed the state of the art. At 2 μm, we obtained a 3.85 km long fiber with ≈3 dB/km loss and >160 nm wide 3 dB bandwidth. Additionally, we report an HC-PBGF operating at 1.55 μm with a length of just over 11 km, transmission bandwidth in excess of 200 nm and a longitudinally uniform loss of ≈5 dB/km, measured via cutback and an integrated scattering method. We used the latter fiber to demonstrate error-free, low-latency, direct-detection 10 Gb/s transmission across the entire C-Band as well as 20 Gb/s quadrature phase shift keyed transmission. These represent the first demonstrations of data transmission over a length of HC-PBGF exceeding 10 km.
Highlights
T HERE has been a resurgence in interest in recent years in the use of Hollow Core Photonic Bandgap Fibers (HCPBGFs) for telecommunication applications [1]
We devised a different method to directly characterize the length-resolved transmission loss of our HC-PBGF. It consists of coupling light from an amplified diode laser (1560 nm) into the fiber and measuring the total out-scattered power as the fiber is wound at a constant speed through an integrating sphere fitted with an InGaAs detector—we term this technique Optical Side Scattering Radiometry (OSSR) [27]
We have presented two record length HC-PBGFs operating in the 1.55 and 2 μm spectral regions, respectively
Summary
T HERE has been a resurgence in interest in recent years in the use of Hollow Core Photonic Bandgap Fibers (HCPBGFs) for telecommunication applications [1]. The primary driver is the potential for low-latency, guided-wave data transmission which is of huge interest in numerous time-sensitive application sectors including: intra- and inter- data center interconnection, high performance computing, large-scale high energy physics experiments, and for bespoke data networks for the financial sector in particular. For all these applications, the 1.54 μs/km latency reduction [2] offered by HC-PBGFs may represent a decisive advantage over existing and competing fiber technologies. The propagation latency reduction in this fiber span as compared to a similar length of standard single mode transmission fiber (e.g., SMF28 or any non-zero dispersion shifted fiber) is confidently estimated to be in excess of 15 μs
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