Optimal design of a bend-insensitive heterogeneous MCF with differential inner-cladding structure and identical cores

Abstract

Abstract We propose a scheme of differential inner-cladding structure and identical cores to design a kind of bend-insensitive heterogeneous multi-core fiber (MCF) with high density of cores and ultra-low crosstalk (XT), which have not been previously reported. Eight cores are arranged in a ring layout in a fiber diameter of 150 μm. The impact of differential inner-cladding structure on fiber performances has been simulated and evaluated in detail. The numerical analyses show that the proposed hetero-MCF achieves an ultra-low XT of less than −50 dB/100 km, mode field area ( A eff ) of larger than 90 μm2, cut-off wavelength ( λ cc ) of less than 1350 nm, bending loss of less than 0.5 dB/100 turns at 1625 nm when bending radius ( R b ) is set to be 30 mm, and relative core multiplicity factor (RCMF) of 6.77. Our proposed hetero-MCF is capable for long distance and high capacity space division multiplexing (SDM) optical transmission systems.