Unique characteristic features of stimulated Brillouin scattering in small-core photonic crystal fibers

We present extensive stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) results from experiments and modeling for four different photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) with core diameters ranging from 8 to 1.7 mu m. These results reveal several SBS characteristic features of small-core PCFs, high thresholds, and acoustic peaks, which are due to their antiguiding nature and highly multimode acoustic character. The nature of what we believe to be new acoustic modes is examined in the light of the large variations observed in the Brillouin gain, Brillouin threshold, and Brillouin shift with decreasing core diameter and optical wavelength. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.