Volume-9 • Number-1 Jan -June 2017 pp. 193-200 available online at www.csjournals.

co m

Photonic Crystal Fiber: Construction, Properties,

Developments and Applications
Shefali Singla1, Poonam Singal 2
12
Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology, Electronics and Communication
Engineering, Murthal, India
1
shefalisingla1@gmail.com, 2 singal.poonam@rediffmail.com

Abstract: With the explosively increasing demand for internet and high data rate, the need to tap the high capacity
offered by optical technology is growing as well. Although optical fiber technology offers high data rates, high channel
capacity, it lacks the flexibility in designing and usage for complete optical spectrum. Photonic crystal fibers are a new
class of fiber system which overcomes all the drawbacks of the conventional optical fibers. These fibers contain an
array of air holes designed in a lattice structure laid down along the length of the fiber. Due to the presence of the air
holes, the field profile along the fiber depends on the lattice configuration. This paper discusses the importance of
photonic crystal fibers, guided mechanism and its applications.
Keywords: Total internal reflection, photonic crystal fiber, index guided fiber, photonic bandgap fiber, material used.

Introduction
An optical fiber is a solid glass surrounded by the concentric glass sheet. It is a cylindrical dielectric
waveguide which operates at the optical frequencies. These fibers are used to transmit light over long
distance and at higher bandwidth. The light is guided by the phenomena of total internal reflection [1, 2].
These fibers have many advantages such as high information carrying capacity, low electromagnetic
interference, high bandwidth, light weight and small diameter [1]. “Fig. 1”, shows the structure of the optical
fiber. The basic single fiber cable consists of the following:

Figure 1. Structure of optical fiber [33]

1. Core: It is made up of highly purified glass. It is a single solid dielectric having refractive index n1. Most of
the light energy is confined to it.
2. Cladding: The glass shell called cladding having refractive index n2. That is smaller than n1. The cladding
shields optical fields so as not to get interfered by the outer layers of the fiber. The material is also either
glass or plastic.
3. Buffer Coating: It protects the fiber from damage and moisture.
4. Primary Buffer: It also protects the fiber and is made of plastic.
5. Secondary Buffer: It is used for color coding identity.
6. Kevlar: It protects the whole fiber.
7. Jacket: It is the outer covering and protects the fiber.
The optical fiber is divided into two classes:
 Conventional Optical Fibers
 Single mode fiber

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 Multi-mode fiber
Step index fiber
Graded index fiber
 Photonic Crystal Fibers
 Index-guided fiber
 Photonic bandgap fiber
Photonic Crystal Fiber
The term photonic crystal fiber was first coined by Phillips St. J. Russel in the early 1990s [4]. These are the
kind of fibers that offer new and improved features and overcome the limitations of the conventional optical
fibers. Its geometry is such that there is a periodic arrangement of air holes that run throughout the fiber
length. In the beginning hexagonal photonic crystal fiber structure was designed. With the passage of time,
due to advancement in the fabrication technology many new structures such as triangular, circular, square,
octagonal, hybrid, decagonal and honeycomb PCF is designed to obtain decent guided properties. To
improve the performance of the photonic crystal fiber structures different materials such as silica, tellurite,
Teflon, PMMA and topas are used. As a result, due to advancement in the fabrication technology PCF results
in low confinement loss, high sensitivity, high numerical aperture, high nonlinearity, large mode area, highly
birefringence, ultra-flattened dispersion, zero flat dispersion and low bending loss [5]. This can be achieved
by changing PCF parameters namely lattice pitch and hole diameter. Thus these fibers combine the properties
of conventional fibers and photonic crystals and thus possess unique properties which make them superior to
the conventional optical fibers. In comparison to optical fibers, photonic crystal fiber offer design flexibility.
Generally, for simplicity, most of the photonic crystal fiber are fabricated using silica glass with n = 1.45.
There are two guidance mechanisms depending on the PCF geometry. It includes (1) Index guided fiber or
holey fiber, (2) Photonic bandgap fiber. Index-guided fiber consists of the solid core where light is guided by
the modified total internal reflection whereas photonic bandgap fiber has a hollow core and follows photonic
bandgap mechanism. PCF are widely used in Spectroscopy, Metrology, Ophthalmology, imaging and in
many other applications.
Index Guided Fiber
Index-guided fiber is also called holey fiber. It consists of a solid core and the pattern of holes surrounding
that core. Here, the effective refractive index of the cladding is lower than the core due to the presence of
holes in it. Light is guided into the core by total internal reflection at the core and air interface. Along the
fiber, the fundamental frequency is guided along the fiber length through the solid core of the fiber and the
higher order modes are leaked in the holes surrounding the core. Thus the light travels through the fiber by
the mechanism of modified total internal reflection. The need of different materials for the cladding is
completely overcome. The fundamental frequency depends on the core diameter, hole diameter, lattice pitch
and structure. “Fig. 2”, shows the solid core fiber or index guided fiber.

Figure 2. Index-guided fiber

Design features of the solid core PCF include endlessly single mode at all wavelength, the large mode at
short wavelength, highly nonlinear multiple cores. Moreover, solid core PCF find its application in super
continuum generation and endlessly single mode fiber.
An example of this type of PCF consists of the hexagonal lattice of air holes in which the core region is
defined by the missing air hole. “Fig. 3”, defines the parameters of the photonic crystal fiber structure [3].

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Figure 3. Cross-section of conventional PCF

1. Core diameter (D): It is the diameter of the central solid part of the fiber.
2. Pitch (Λ): The distance between the centers of the air holes in the fiber.
3. Size of hole (d): It is the diameter of the air hole.
Photonic Bandgap Fiber
It consists of the hollow core. In this, the center air hole has a larger diameter as compared to the diameter of
the surrounding hole. Due to this, the core refractive index becomes lower than the cladding and the principle
of conventional fibers do not apply to these fibers. Due to this geometry, there is an occurrence of photonic
band gap which is analogous to the electronic band gap in semiconductors. Due to the presence of this
photonic band gap, there exists a certain set of frequencies which are not allowed to pass through the fiber.
This gap is defined by the geometry of the fiber. The light is guided along the fiber length even though the
core refractive index is lower than that of the cladding. This property is in sharp contrast to the conventional
fibers which require a core of relatively higher refractive index for light to be guided along the fiber. This
unique property provides flexibility in the choice of material for the fiber. Depending on the fiber geometry,
the bandgap can be shifted to cover the entire optical domain. “Fig. 4”, shows photonic bandgap fiber or
hollow fiber.

Figure 4. Photonic bandgap fiber

Construction Strategies
Depending on the fabrication methods photonic crystal fibers are classified into three main categories. They
are one-dimensional, two-dimensional and three-dimensional photonic crystal fibers.
“Fig. 5”, shows the geometry of photonic crystal fiber.
A. One-dimensional photonic crystal fiber
In one-dimensional photonic crystal fiber, the dielectric is periodic is one direction. Alternating layers of
material are deposited together to form the bandgap in the single direction. The simplest example of one
dimension photonic crystal fiber is Bragg mirror and is commonly used in the dielectric mirror, optical switch
etc.
B. Two-dimensional photonic crystal fiber
Two-dimensional photonic crystal fibers are made by drilling holes into the substrate and are used in
nonlinear devices. It was first established by Thomas Krauss in 1996. The two-dimensional periodic variation
structures are called photonic crystal fiber. Triangular and square lattice PCF structure has been employed.

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C. Three-dimensional photonic crystal fiber

Three-dimensional photonic crystal fibers can be fabricated by stacking 2-D layers on the top of each other
and by drilling them at different angles. Three-dimensional effects are found in various structures like
Yablonovite structure, diamond structure and woodpile structure.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 5. (a) One dimensional (b) two dimensional (c) three dimensional photonic crystals [6]

Development of photonic crystal fiber

The photonic crystal fibers are developed in the early1990s. Till today many researchers have been made in
the field of photonic crystal fiber. An overview of photonic crystal fiber development is presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Overview of PCF Developments

Year Development
1978 Idea of Bragg fiber [7]
1992 Idea of the photonic crystal fiber with air core [8]
Fabrication of single-mode fiber with photonic coating
1996
[9]
1997 Endlessly single mode PCF [10]
1999 PCF with photonic bandgap and air core [11]
2000 Highly birefringent [12]
2000 Supercontinuum generation with PCF [13]
2001 Fabrication of a Bragg fiber [14]
2001 PCF laser with double cladding [15]
2002 PCF with ultra-flattened dispersion [16]
2003 Bragg fiber with silica and air core [17]
2004 Chalcognide photonic crystal fiber [18]
2005 Kagome lattice PCF [19]
2006 Hybrid PCF [20]
Silicon double inversion technique for manufacturing
2007
polymer templates for photonic crystals [21]
2009 Hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber [22]
2013 Double cladding seven core photonic crystals [23]
2014 PCF based nano-displacement sensors [24]
2015 Design of equiangular PCF [25]
2015 Integration of PCF fiber laser [26]

Material used for photonic crystal fiber

A. Silica: The host material

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Silica has been used as background material for photonic crystal fibers. It has a bandgap of 1.1 eV at 300K. It
also has a high nonlinear refractive index of about 4.5*10-14 cmW-1 and two-photon absorption coefficient of
about 7.9*10-10 cmW-1 [27]. The fabrication methods for silicon-based devices are well defined. However, the
bandgap for silicon is indirect which leads to long free carrier lifetime and thus free carrier absorption. Thus,
to avoid free carrier absorption and two-photon absorption, other nonlinear materials need to be investigated.

B. Chalcogens
Nonlinear materials such as chalcogenide can be used as a background material for PCF. The chalcogens are
the chemical elements present in group 16 of the periodic table. It consists of the Oxygen, Sulphur, Selenium,
Tellurium and Polonium. Tellurium is a semiconductor material whereas some allotropes of selenium display
properties that of semiconductor materials.
C. Chalcogenide glasses
Chalcogenide glasses contain Sulphur, Selenium, Tellurium or a combination of these elements. Their
refractive index ranges from 2.35 to 3.5. The most important feature is high nonlinear refractive index and
low photon absorption [27]. There is theoretically no free carrier absorption at 1550 nm. Some of the
chalcogenide materials used are As2Se3, As2S3, Ge11.5As24S64.5 and Ge11.5As24Se64.5. Among the various
chalcogenide materials, the most widely used material is Ge11.5As24Se64.5 due to its high thermal and optical
stability and excellent thin film forming capability under intense illumination [28].
Advantages of photonic crystal fiber
The design of PCF is very flexible. There are many advantages of photonic crystal fiber over conventional
optical fibers. Some of them are.
1. It provides single mode operation for very short operating wavelength.
2. High birefringence.
3. Controllable dispersion.
4. Single polarization single mode.
5. Remain single mode for large scale fiber
6. Nonlinearity and effective mode area.
Applications of photonic crystal fiber

A. A highly nonlinearly designed PCF having 4 layers of air holes with first layer diameter d = 0.46 µm and
the remaining layers having diameter d1 = 0.80 µm with lattice pitch Λ = 0.87 µm can be used for
broadband supercontinuum generation which is used in ophthalmology, dermatology, dental and
detection of cancer [29].

Figure 6. HN-PCF with four layers of air hole [29]

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B. A PCF-in-PCF structure exhibits ultra-flattened negative dispersion of about -474.5 ps/nm/km for a wide
range of wavelength ranging from 1360 nm to 1690 nm and thus can be used for residual dispersion
compensation in optical transmission [30].

Figure 7. Cross-section of PCF-PCF structure [30]

C. A highly nonlinear hexagonal photonic crystal fiber (Ge11.5As24Se64.5) with five rings lattice structure and
by changing the diameters of the air hole can be used for supercontinuum generation and gives a flat
dispersion profile for mid-infrared range (1- 10 µm) [28].

Figure 8. Hexagonal PCF [28]

D. Photonic crystal fiber with butterfly lattice structure, central core region doped with GeO2 and fiber
Bragg grating (FBG) inscribed in the core can be used as optical fiber pressure sensor [31].

Figure 9. Cross-section of highly birefringent butterfly PCF [31]

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E. A chalcogenide As2Se3 glass PCF with hexagonal lattice and square lattice structure with the pitch of 0.2
µm can be used as dispersion compensating fibers. In comparison to the silica this fiber provides high
negative dispersion in the wavelength range 1.2 – 1.6 µm [32].

Figure 10. Two-dimensional hexagonal PCF [32]

Conclusion
In this paper, we have discussed photonic crystal fiber. We have also discussed the basic guided properties of
this new class of fiber. This fiber provides flexibility in their design and overcomes the limitations of the
conventional optical fibers. Thus, these fibers have vast potential and multidisciplinary applications. It offers
endlessly single mode, zero dispersion at different wavelengths. Also, these fibers are under extensive
research and have a long way to go.

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