Nonreciprocal TE–TM Mode Conversion Based on Photonic Crystal Fiber of Air Holes Filled With Magnetic Fluid Into a Terbium Gallium Garnet Fiber

Abstract

The nonreciprocal optical effect of Faraday rotation (FR) is widely exploited in optical isolators to suppress back-reflections to protect optical sources and other devices from injection noise, or in optical circulators to route counter-propagating signals in a single physical channel to different ports [1]. The first concept of an integrated isolator was based on nonreciprocal TE-TM mode conversion. However, most proposals of the waveguide type isolators are based on nonreciprocal TE-TM mode conversion [2], the nonreciprocal coupling between these modes is caused by the FR if the magnetization is aligned along the z-axis, parallel to mode propagation. FR effect can be used for magnet sensors, because the Verdet constant of silica fibre is small (∼1.1 rad/(T.m) at 1064 nm) [3]. In this work, we propose to study the nonreciprocal TE-TM mode conversion phenomenon, by the simulation of magneto photonic crystal fibre (MPCF). It consists of a periodic triangular lattice of air-holes filled with magnetic fluids (Fe 3 O 4 ) into a Terbium Gallium Garnet (TGG) fibre which is a kind of synthetic garnet with chemical composition Tb 3 Ga 5 O 12 . This garnet was chosen as a Faraday rotator material which has excellent transparency properties and is very resistant to laser damage. TGG has also a high Verdet constant which results in the FR effect. We simulated the influence of gyrotropy and the wavelength, and calculated the FR and modal birefringence. In this MPCF fibre, the light is guided by internal total reflection, like classical fibres. However, it was shown that they could function on a mode conversion much stronger than conventional fibres.