Infiltration liquid crystal in microstructured polymer optical fibers

Here, we firstly demonstrate the photonic bandgap effect with PMMA mPOF by filling the air holes with liquid crystal, and subsequently change the light guidance mechanism from index guiding to bandgap guiding. The triangular structure PMMA mPOF used in the experiment is fabricated. A 60 cm length mPOF is butt-coupled to a conventional single mode fiber (SMF) with the broadband light from a supercontinuum source. It is clear to see the colour of the guided modes is red, since some wavelengths are attenuated by the material loss of PMMA in visible region. A positive dielectric anisotropy liquid crystal E7 is then infiltrated into about 6 cm of the length of mPOF by using capillary forces with the duration of 45 minutes. The transmission spectrum is measured by an optical spectrum analyzer with 1 nm resolution, and normalized to that of the unfilled fiber as shown by the solid line. The difference of spectra clearly reveals that, by filling the liquid crystal, some new bandgaps are formed in the wavelength range of 730 nm -780 nm, which is quite different with the material loss spectrum.