Dispersion engineering in soft glass photonic crystal fibers infiltrated with liquids

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the dispersion characteristic modification in a nonlinear photonic crystal fibre (PCF) infiltrated with organic solvents. The PCF is made of PBG08 glass and was developed in the stack-and-draw process. The PBG08 glass has a high refractive index (n < 2.0), high nonlinear refractive index (n2 = 4.3×10−19 m2/W) and good rheological properties that allow for thermal processing of the glass without crystallization. In the numerical study 18 different solvents were used. The dispersion, mode area, and losses characteristics were calculated. The zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) of the fibre can be shifted towards longer wavelengths by approx. 150 nm by using Nitrobenzene as infiltrating liquid and by a smaller value using other liquids. At the same time the mode area of the fundamental mode increases by approx. 5 to 15% depending on the wavelength considered. The confinement losses increase significantly for six analysed liquids by a few orders of magnitude up to 102 dB/m. Our approach allows to combine high nonlinearities of the soft glass with the possibility to tune zero dispersion wavelength to the desired value.