Guiding and thermal properties of a hybrid polymer-infused photonic crystal fiber

In this work, we investigate the guiding properties of a hybrid polymer (poly-dimethylsiloxane)/silica photonic crystal fiber (PCF). In particular, we demonstrate how the basic guiding properties of a conventional PCF are changed due to the infusion of poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in its air-holes. We show that PDMS infiltration allows tuning of single mode operation, confinement loss, effective modal area (EMA) and numerical aperture (NA) with wavelength and/or temperature. This is primarily due to the enhancement of evanescent field interaction, lending some important characteristics for designing tunable fiber devices. Numerical calculations were performed for different relative hole sizes, d/Lambda (0.35-0.75), of PCF for a 500-1700nm wavelength and 0-100 degrees C temperature range, whereas direct comparison with a conventional air-filled PCF is also shown. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America