Highly birefringent microstructured fiber selectively filled with lossy material

Abstract

Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) filled with various substances can be used as all-in-fiber tunable devices. Due to their optical anisotropic properties, liquid crystals (LCs) are one of the best solutions for these devices. However, numerical modeling and design may be a very challenging task in this case if LC anisotropy is considered. Moreover, LCs are characterized by much higher losses than silica glass and it is not clear how it will affect the modal properties. In this paper we investigate theoretically highly birefringent PCFs selectively filled with lossy materials characterized by a wide range of extinction coefficients.

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