Microstructured optical fiber phase diagrams and operating regimes: toward deterministic MOF design

In solid core Microstructured Optical Fibers (MOFs), guidance of light is due to a finite number of layers of holes surrounding a solid core. Because the potential barrier is finite, all modes are leaky, blurring the distinction between guided and non-guided modes. Through simulations using a multipole formulation, we clarify the definition of modal cutoff in MOFs. We establish that the fundamental mode of MOFs undergoes a transition between modal confinement and non-confinement similar to modal cutoff. An asymptotic analysis gives us a better understanding of mode properties on each side of the cutoff but also near cutoff and leads us to define a cutoff point and a cutoff region for the fundamental mode. Three operation regimes with very different mode properties can be distinguished. Only two of these are of practical interest, one with strong mode confinement and another with broader field distributions. The former is of interest for single-mode guidance with strong confinement, whereas the latter, the cutoff region, is where highly adjustable chromatic dispersion can be achieved. We provide a map of the parameter space (MOF "phase diagram") summarizing the operating regimes of MOFs, and show for a few examples how this map can be used for deterministic MOF design.

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