Abstract
The modal characteristics of photonic crystal fibers (PCFs), with guiding cores consisting of one or seven
missing airholes, are investigated with the finite element method and compared to those of step-index fibers (SIFs).
To extend the applicability of the classical SIF theories to PCFs, the effective refractive index of photonic
crystal cladding and the effective core radius of a PCF are studied systematically, based on simple physically
consistent concepts. With the new effective cladding index and core radius of PCFs, the classical definition of the
V parameter for SIFs is extended to PCFs, and a highly
efficient approach based on the effective-index method is developed for the design of PCFs. The new design approach
has been successfully employed to analyze the modal properties of PCF lasers with depressed-index cores and further
tested by using it to effectively estimate the number of guided modes for PCFs with large cores.
© 2007 IEEE
PDF Article
More Like This
Cited By
You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.
Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription