Modal Properties of an Index Guiding Nematic Liquid Crystal Based Photonic Crystal Fiber

This paper presents the results of the modal analysis of an index guiding soft glass photonic crystal fiber infiltrated with a nematic liquid crystal (NLC-PCF). The modal analysis is carried out using the full vectorial finite difference method which is capable of dealing accurately with anisotropic waveguide problems. The analyzed parameters are the effective index, birefringence, dispersion, effective mode area, and confinement losses for the two fundamental polarized modes. The effects of the structure geometrical parameters, rotation angle of the director of the NLC and temperature on the modal properties are investigated. The numerical results reveal that the proposed design offers high birefringence of 0.012 at the operating wavelength 1.55 mum with low losses for the two polarized modes. In addition, the structure is tailored to obtain a flat dispersion over a wide range of wavelengths with high birefringence.