HOLEY FIBERS - Novel methods pair holey fibers with conventional fibers

摘要

With their small mode-field diameters, some holey fibers are difficult to couple to standard single-mode fibers. Innovative techniques, such as heating and pressurizing to reshape fiber geometry, then tapering, make low-loss coupling possible. Atypical photonic-crystal fiber (PCF, also known as holey or microstructured fiber) is made of silica glass with air channels that run along the cladding, confining light to the core. In the ten years since they were first made, they have been shown to have unusual properties with important potential applications. However, these applications will remain "potential" unless PCFs can be routinely connected to conventional single-mode fiber (SMF) with low loss.