Highly Birefringent Slotted Core Photonic Crystal Fiber for THz Wave Propagation

We propose a novel design of a slotted core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) that offers ultra low-loss and high birefringence attribute for efficient transmission of terahertz (THz) waves. A finite element method has been used to investigate the modal characteristics of the PCF. Our design incorporates an asymmetrical structure of air holes in the core to achieve high birefringence. Moreover, in the cladding region, we have a compact geometry of air holes arranged in five hexagonal layers to obtain lower dispersion. The simulated results show that the PCF exhibits simultaneously a low effective material loss of 0.025 cm(-1) and high modal birefringence of 0.0911, a flattened dispersion property of 0.65 +/- 0.05 ps THz(-1) cm(-1) having a frequency range of 0.5 to 1.6 THz, core power fraction of 52% and very negligible confinement loss of about 1.05 x 10(-13) cm(-1). We believe our proposed PCF will bring about a promising improvement in high-speed broadband communications in the THz regime as well as numerous applications in the near future.