Ultrahigh birefringence terahertz porous fibers based on interlacing layered infiltration method

Abstract

In this paper, an interlacing layered infiltration method is proposed, using some liquid material as the common porous fiber with triangular air-hole array in the core region, which can achieve the characteristic of ultrahigh modal birefringence in this circumstance. Förstly, the basic properties of the porous fiber with a porosity of 43.08% are thoroughly analyzed by using a full-vector finite element method, as wellas the dispersion curves of the fiber, modal birefringence, fraction of the fundamental modal power for x and y polarizations, loss characteristics, etc. Secondly, to enhance the asymmetry of the proposed structure, some liquid material with a refractive index of 1.4 is infiltrated into the air holes in the fiber core region, by using interlacing filling method. It is found that the modal birefringence of the fiber dramatically increases. At an operation frequency of 1.1 THz, the peak value of modal birefringence rises from 1.05×10-3 to 1.36×10-2 after the infiltration operation. The fundamental model effective material absorption loss coefficients for x and y polarization modes increase from 0.16 dB/cm to 0.25 dB/cm and 0.28 dB/cm, respectively. And the operation frequency band increases from 1.1 to 1.9 THz. Simulation results indicate that the modal birefringence of the fiber can be remarkably improved by increasing the refractive index of the infiltrated liquid material. With an operation frequency of 2.2 THz and a refractive index of 2, this fiber can realize an ultrahigh modal birefringence of 8.03×10-2. Moreover, to achieve the gradient distribution of the refractive index, an interlacing layered infiltration method to infiltrate the liquid material with different refractive indices in different layers is employed. Results show that the confinement capability to the guided modes has been greatly enhanced. Results also show that the peak value of the modal birefringence for the fundamental modes does not exist in the operation band. It represents a monotonically increasing trend. At an operation frequency of 2.2 THz, the fiber modal birefringence can reach as high as 7.19×10-2. This scheme presents an ultrahigh modal birefringence, and it presents the tunable characteristic as well. This study may be of significance in the practical applications in the field of THz functional devices.