Recent Advances in Hollow-Core Optical Fibers

Abstract

Hollow core fibers (HCFs) guide light in a central void running down their length, thereby avoiding the strong light: glass interaction intrinsic to conventional solid fibers. As a consequence, HCFs provide access to an array of unique optical properties, which include amongst others: close to vacuum light speed propagation, ultralow optical nonlinearity, low and spectrally flat group velocity dispersion at any wavelength band of choice, ultralow backscattering and low loss transmission at wavelengths at which silica glass itself is effectively opaque (i.e. in the UV and mid-IR). The increasingly strong hope is that HCFs will ultimately support attenuation levels comparable to, or below, those achievable in solid silica fibers at essentially any desired wavelength across the optical spectrum.