# Analysis of High Birefringence of Four Types of Photonic Crystal Fiber by Combining Circular and Elliptical Air Holes in Fiber Cladding

Authors: Yuan-Fong Chau; Han-Hsuan Yeh; Din Ping Tsai
Journal: Advances in Nonlinear Optics
 (2008)

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## Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study of high birefringence induced by four types (Type 1–4) of different sizes of elliptical air holes in photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). The numerical simulation is carried out by using the finite element method. The statistical correlations between the birefringence and the various parameters are obtained. Based on our results, the birefringence is found to be largely dependent on the variation of the normalized frequency, size ratio, effective area of the circular and elliptical air holes, and the ring number of cladding. Two of our suggested structures, Type 1 and Type 3, can considerably enhance the birefringence in PCFs leading to values as high as7.697×10−3 and 8.002×10−3, respectively, which are much higher than that obtained by a conventional step-index fiber.


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## Body

## 1. Introduction

Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) guide the electromagnetic field by an arrangement of air holes that run
down the entire fiber length. Recently, the most common cladding of PCFs has been investigated
extensively [1–6], which consists of circular
air holes, arranged in a triangular lattice with symmetric structure. For any
fiber with rotational symmetry of order higher than two, a mode that has a
preferred direction must be one of a pair of degenerate modes. Symmetry in PCFs
implies the existence of doubly degenerate pairs of modes, that share the same
propagation constant (β) and free-space wavelength (λ), so they must be
degenerate. As a result, the observation of birefringence must be a result of
asymmetry in the structure. These perturbations couple the modes that propagate
at slightly different phase velocities, with the consequence that the
polarization of light becomes unpredictable after a short propagation. To
overcome this drawback, it is highly desirable to
generate a large birefringence with a low scattering loss
and at the same time to avoid significant perturbations in the cladding modes to cope with
recent challenges and demands in fiber optic polarization control.
When control
over the polarization of light is crucial, high birefringence (up to about 5  ×  10−4)
may be induced on purpose in conventional fibers by a number of techniques [7], and this reduces the
coupling between the once degenerate modes. A number of recent studies indicate
that PCFs with a preferred direction in their geometry could exhibit
birefringence of about an order of magnitude higher than that obtained with
conventional techniques [8–10].As described in our previous work [11],
the
key point to induce high birefringence B is to destroy the symmetry of the structure,
and make the mode of the two orthogonal
polarization states
different. Usually, the anisotropy in PCFs can be introduced
using elliptical air holes [12–16]
and with asymmetric core [17]
or asymmetric distribution of air holes in the cladding [18]. In order to combine asymmetry in both the core
and the cladding,
a PCF formed by a triangular lattice of elliptical air holes with double-defect
fiber core is reported to yield
a value of B~10−2 in [19].
Based on the structure asymmetry, the PCF structure in [20] is proposed by
employing elliptical air holes
in the fiber core (to induce high birefringence up to 10−2 order)
but circular air holes
in the fiber cladding (to reduce the confinement loss). However, the shape of the elliptical air holes needs a careful
control in the fabrication process [20]. Ortigosa-Blanch et al. adopted an asymmetric cladding
design [18] with the PCF
consists of triangular lattice air holes, while one adjacent small central air hole is missing. Birefringence
was introduced into the fiber only by a line defect of a small air hole array in the PCF center.The
structures formed by the elliptical air holes appear
exhaustively complicated on the experience with fabrication of PCFs with
varying hole sizes. Based on
our previous works [11–13],
high birefringence induced by complex (or binary) unit cell of circular
and elliptical air holes PCFs is analyzed numerically in this paper using finite
element method. Four types of PCFs are investigated. The origin of the
birefringence is discussed in detail and its dependence on the structural
parameters is analyzed. Furthermore, we discuss the influence of the rings of
air holes and confinement loss on the influence of birefringence. Binary unit
cell is the simplest way to form the complex cladding. The proposed structure
has circular and elliptical air holes of two different sizes to replace the singular
size of air holes in a PCF cladding, and is different from that proposed in
conventional PCF designs. The birefringence of our structure
is a result of the whole cladding
asymmetry. The fiber core is a defect, which is formed by the omission of one circular
air hole in the PCF center, which the mode
field is well confined in the core region; thus, it is possible to create a high
birefringence and low loss PCF. Together with the technological
advancement in the fabrication of PCFs [21, 22],
it is possible to fabricate our suggested PCF, but the technology for forming
the complex cladding (different sizes of small and large air holes) may be challenging
during fabrication of the proposed fiber.


## 2. Simulation Method

Among the
full vectorial methods used in modeling PCFs [23–28], the
finite-element method (FEM) is particularly effective for handling curved
interfaces with high accuracy, and it is obviously a
good choice
for the analysis of combined circular and elliptical shape. The
numerical method used in this study is FEM which is adequate for the analysis
of general dielectric waveguide geometries. It has been already successfully applied
to investigate dispersion properties of triangular and cobweb PCFs [29]. The fiber cross-section
representation is very accurate as the domain is divided into subdomains with
triangular or quadrilateral shape, where any refractive index profiles can be
properly represented. Applying the variational FEM procedure
to the curl-curl equation for magnetic field H, one obtains an eigenvalue equation ([P]−β2[Q]{H}=0, where {H} is the global magnetic field vector, β is the propagation constant, and [P]
and [Q] are both sparse matrices. The symmetry of the fiber cross-section is exploited
to reduce CPU time and memory requirements. Solving the eigenvalue equation
yields the effective indices of guided modes neff≡β/k0, where k0=2π/λ is the wave vector in free space. The modal birefringence of the fiber
is then obtained by B≡|neffx−neffy|,
where neffx and neffy are effective
indices of the x- and y-polarized fundamental modes, respectively. In order to model infinite
PCF with two-dimensional-finite-geometry (i.e., to enclose the computational
domain without affecting the numerical solution), it is necessary to use
anisotropic perfectly matched layers (PMLs) which are placed in
the contact with the outermost
boundary.


## 3. Design and Results

Four kinds of PCF
cores, which
are formed by the omission of different sizes of air hole in the
PCF center,
are analyzed for comparison, as shown in Figures1(a)–1(d). For convenience, we
name the corresponding fibers as Type 1 (omitting a
small air
hole in the
center of the PCF, which has a small and a
large
elliptical air hole as a binary unit cell in the PCF cladding, see Figure 1(a)), Type 2 (the
same as Type 1, but omitting a large air hole in the center of the
PCF, see Figure
1(b)), Type 3 (omitting a small air hole in the
center of the PCF, which has a small elliptical
and a
large
circular air holes
as a binary unit cell in the PCF cladding, see Figure 1(c)),
and Type 4 (omitting
a large
air hole in the center of the PCF,
which has a small
circular and a large elliptical air holes as a binary unit
cell in the PCF cladding, see Figure 1(d)), respectively. In Types 1–4, each lattice point
forms the cladding which consists of two different sizes of air
holes with a
pitch (center-to-center distance between the holes), Λ  =  1.96 μm. As shown in Figures
1(a) and 1(b) (Type 1 and Type 2 structures), a1 and b1 denote the half length
of the large elliptical holes along X-(minor axis) and Y-(major
axis) directions, respectively. In the same manner, c1 and d1 represent the ones
with smaller
elliptical ones. In Figure 1(c)
(Type 3 structure), c2 and b2 denote the half length
of the small elliptical holes along X- and Y-directions,
and a2 represents the radius
of large circular air hole. In Figure 1(d)
(Type 4 structure), a3 and b3 denote the half length
of the large elliptical holes along X- and Y-directions, and
c3 represents the radius of small circular air hole. We also define a
coefficient η=a1/c1=a2/b2=a3/c3 to determine the relationship between the large and small air-hole sizes. In addition, a solid silica jacket was added to
increase the diameter and strength of this fiber. The refractive index of the
background silica is set to be n  =  1.45.Figure 1
Cross-section of four types of our proposed PCF structures. (a) Our proposed Type 1. (b) Our proposed Type 2. (c) Our proposed Type 3. (d) Our proposed Type 4.We consider the birefringence of the
fundamental mode and the modal birefringenceB, which is defined above
in Section 2.
To illustrate the field profile of Type 1 and Type 2
PCFs, the
fundamental mode with the parameters, Λ  =  1.96 μm, A/Λ2  =  0.4, η(a1/c1)=5.5, elliptical ratio
a1/b1=c1/d1=0.83 at excitation
wavelength λ  =  1550 nm, are shown in Figure 2, which shows the confinement of light
in the PCFs. In Figure 2(a), the X- and Y-polarized modes are strongly bound with
the effective indices neffx  =  1.390869 and neffy  =  1.383283,
respectively. This leads to a birefringence   B≡|neffx−neffy|  =  7.586  ×  10−3,
which is much higher than the value of 3.7  ×  10−3 obtained
from the previous PCF structure [1]. In addition, the
birefringence obtained from Type 2 structure (Figure 1(b)) is B  =  2.5  ×  10−3,
which is lower than those obtained from the
structures of
Types 1, 3, and 4.Mode field patterns of Type 1 and Type 2.
(a)
Type 1 structure(b)
Type 2 structureThe effective index and birefringence of PCFs are dependent on the size
of air hole and varying wavelengths. As expected, the
difference between two polarized direction modes in PCF
cladding
asymmetry can cause high birefringence in PCFs. Figure3 shows the
birefringence as function of wavelength for the four types of
PCFs,
whereas the hole spacing remains constant at Λ  =  1.96 μm, A/Λ2  =  0.4
(where A is the effective area of air hole in the unit cell), a1/b1=c1/d1=c2/d2=a3/b3  =  0.75,
and the ratio (η) of large and small air holes fixed
with a1/c1=a2/b2=a3/c3  =  5.5.
It can be clearly seen in Figure 3 that the birefringence is sensitive to the
variation of wavelength λ, and the birefringences in Types 1, 3, and 4 are much
higher than that in Type 2 structure as the value of wavelength is less than
1.5 μm. When the value of wavelength is larger than
1.6 μm, the birefringence in Type 3 is much larger
than those values from the other three types of structures. The corresponding
birefringence of λ  =  1.55 μm for Type 1 is 7.697  ×  10−3, for Type 2 is
1.502  ×  10−3, for Type 3 is 8.002  ×  10−3, and for Type
4 is 6.014  ×  10−3. In this case, Type 3 structure is
superior to the other types on birefringence.Figure 3
The
birefringence as function of wavelength of four types of PCFs, whereas the hole
spacing remains constant atΛ  =  1.96 μm, A/Λ2  =  0.4,
a1/b1=c1/d1=c2/d2=a3/b3  =  0.75,
and the ratio of large and small air holes fixed η(a1/c1=a2/b2=a3/c3)  =  5.5.Figure4 shows the simulation results for the comparison
of the birefringences obtained from the four types of structures as a function
of effective area of air holes A/Λ2 in PCF cladding with structure
parameters Λ  =  1.96 μm, a1/b1=c1/d1=c2/d2=a3/b3  =  0.75;
the ratio of large to small air hole size fixed at
η(a1/c1=a2/b2=a3/c3)  =  5.5
and the excitation wavelength of λ  =  1.55 μm.
The results show that the birefringence increases with the effective area A.
With the increasing effective area A in PCF cladding, the difference of air
filling fraction becomes large between X- and Y-directions; thus, more confined fields
exist in the Y-direction. The birefringences of Types 1, 3, and 4 increase quickly as the
effective area A/Λ2 increases. A maximum value of birefringence in Type 3 reaches 8.002  ×  10−3 at A/Λ2  =  0.4. In this case, we can also see that the birefringence
of Type 2 is lower than those of the other three types.Figure 4
Dependence
of modal birefringence on effective areaA/Λ2.The asymmetry as well as the stability
on birefringence due to the interruption of the lattice is evident. The field confinement and its
decay rate play a fundamental role in the leakage properties. They depend on
the air hole diameter, on their pitch, and on the number of rings. In practice,
more than six air holes are often needed to reduce the confinement loss to an
acceptable level. For the sake of accuracy, we use 13 rings in this paper. In
the following analysis, we fix the wavelength,Λ  =  1.96 μm, a1/b1=c1/d1=c2/d2=a3/b3  =  0.75,
the ratio of large and small air holes η(a1/c1=a2/b2=a3/c3)  =  5.5, and the excitation wavelength of λ  =  1.55 μm. The influence of asymmetry cladding on the birefringence
stability is also significant, which is illustrated in Figure 5. The reason why
the birefringences of Types 1 and 3 PCFs is better than that of Types 2 and 4 PCFs
as shown in Figure 5 is that the birefringences of Type 1 and Type 3 are caused by smaller air holes in the X-direction,
which give arise to greater fields confined in the core region, thus the
birefringence is more stable even in the case of 13 rings.Figure 5
Dependence
of modal birefringence on number of air-hole rings.The FEM is used to calculate the confinement loss of the fundamental
modes in the four types of PCFs, and results are plotted in Figure6. As an example
of our interest, the parameters are A/Λ2=0.4, η(a1/c1=a2/b2=a3/c3)  =  5.5,
and λ  =  1550 nm. As seen in Figure 6, with the number of air hole rings
increasing, the confinement loss rapidly decreases, meaning that the
confinement of the guided mode is significantly improved. Types 3 and 4 PCFs have
greater confinement loss, whereas that loss for Type 1 PCF is reduced, and
further reduction can be achieved by Type 2. The confinement losses of Type 2
PCF is 0.026 dB/km, which is much lower than the values of 109.32, 100.757, and 59.6 dB/km for Types 1, 3, and 4 structures,
when the number of the air hole rings is N  =  7. The reason why the confinement
loss of Type 2 PCF is much lower than that of Types 1, 3, and 4 PCFs is that the core in Type
2 PCF is better enclosed by the first ring of smaller air holes under the
condition of identical effective air-hole area.Figure 6
Confinement loss as function of number of rings (N=4–7).


## 4. Conclusions

In
conclusion, a high
birefringent index-guiding photonic crystal fiber with asymmetric cladding is
successfully demonstrated. Four types of our proposed PCFs are
investigated. Results show that the birefringences of our proposed Type 1 and Type 3 structures are much higher than those
obtained from Type 2 and Type 4. The reason why the birefringences of Types 1
and 3 PCFs is better than those of Types 2 and 4 PCFs is that the birefringences
of Type 1 and Type 3 contribute by smaller air holes in theX-direction, which
gives arise to more fields confined in the core region. The confinement loss of
Type 2 PCF is much lower than those of Types 1, 3, and 4 structures. This is
due to the smaller air holes of the first ring under the condition of identical
effective air-hole area. The birefringence is
achieved by introducing the different air-hole sizes in the triangular
structure. We utilize the intrinsically large index contrast in PCFs in
combination with asymmetric cladding designs. There are many methods to induce
birefringence in photonic crystal fibers. The key point is to destroy the
symmetry of the structure, and to create the effective index difference between
the two orthogonal polarization states. The suggested structure possesses a
large birefringence to separate the two polarization modes. Our simulation
results provide valuable insight into realization of PCF with even appreciable
birefringence than those demonstrated previously in literature.



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