A high-compatibility low-bending-loss photonic crystal fiber with standard single mode fiber

Abstract

A high-compatibility low-bending-loss photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with standard single mode fiber (SMF) is designed and manufactured successfully. From the point of the view of fiber fabrication and application, a feasible structure with a germanium-doped core surrounded by one layer of six air holes running along fiber axis is adopted in fiber design. The properties of the fabricated PCF such as modal property, bending characteristic and dispersion are systemically evaluated with indirect measurement method. Analysis results demonstrate that this fiber has a mode field area of 79.26 μm2 and dispersion of 21.7 ps·km-1·nm-1, which exhibits high compatibility with SMF. The bending loss is 0.0365 dB/turn at a wavelength of 1550 nm for a bending radius of 5 mm, which is less than the bending loss of 0.5 dB/turn of G.657B. This fiber offers an efficient way to develop the low-bending-loss fibers for the application of fiber-to-the-home.