Octagonal Photonic Crystal Fibers: Application to Ultra-flattened Dispersion

The dispersion in photonic crystal fibers likewise conventional optical fibers determines performance of optical systems. Fibers having near-zero dispersion and wideband flat characteristics are considered crucial for applications in both the linear and nonlinear regimes. This paper presents an octagonal photonic crystal fiber design for ultra-flattened chromatic dispersion characteristic and extremely low confinement losses. The finite difference time domain method with anisotropic perfectly matched layer boundaries is used to investigate the chromatic dispersion and confinement losses. It has been demonstrated that it is possible to obtain ultra-flattened dispersion of 0 ± 0.48 ps/(nm.km) in a wavelength range of 1.39 to 1.70 ^m with extremely low confinement losses of the order less than 10-5 dB/km from a five ring octagonal cladding photonic crystal fiber. Photonic crystal fibers with such novel properties as wideband near-zero ultra-flattened dispersion and low confinement losses may be potential candidate for wavelength converter, optical amplification, and other environmental applications