Silica-Based Nanostructure Core Fiber

We report the fabrication and characterization of a new type of silica-based all-solid fiber with a two-dimensional (2-D) nanostructure core. The nanostructure core fiber (NCF) was formed by a 2-D array of high-index rods of sub wavelength dimensions. The NCF´s attenuation of as low as 3.5 dB/km at 1550 nm has been obtained experimentally. We also measured the chromatic dispersion, differential group delay, and polarization-dependent loss of the NCF. Higher macro-and microbending losses compared with that of the single-mode fiber due to the reduced index difference has been observed experimentally, and this result suggests that NCF is potentially useful for curvature and strain sensing applications.