Dispersion enhanced photonic crystal fibers for true time delay lines

Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) provide large dispersion tuning ability by increasing the dispersion value to reduce the fiber length. With conventional single-mode fibers (SMFs), dispersion cannot be changed significantly because of the small index variation from doping over the transverse cross section. This shortcoming may be overcome by the design of PCFs, which can be tailored to exhibit high dispersion. The novel cladding structure of PCFs consisting of an array of micrometer-sized air holes allows for flexible tailoring of the dispersion curve.