Fusion splicing photonic crystal fibers and conventional single-mode fibers: Microhole collapse effect

We investigate the microhole collapse property of different photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) and its effect on the splice loss using an electric arc fusion splicer. The physical mechanism of the splice loss for different kinds of PCFs is studied, and a guideline for splicing these PCFs and conventional single-mode fibers (SMFs) is proposed. We demonstrate a low-loss fusion splicing of five different PCFs with SMFs, including large-mode PCF, hollow-core PCF, nonlinear PCFs, and polarization-maintaining PCF.