Microstructured optical fibers: where's the edge?

We establish that Microstructured Optical Fibers (MOFs) have a fundamental mode cutoff, marking the transition between modal confinement and non-confinement, and give insight into the nature of this transition through two asymptotic models that provide a mapping to conventional fibers. A small parameter space region where neither of these asymptotic models holds exists for the fundamental mode but not for the second mode; we show that designs exploiting unique MOF characteristics tend to concentrate in this preferred region. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.