Wavelength-scalable hollow optical fibres with large photonic bandgaps for CO2 laser transmission
Burak Temelkuran, Shandon D. Hart, Gilles Benoit, John D. Joannopoulos & Yoel Fink- Research Laboratory of Electronics and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Here we report on the design and drawing of a hollow optical fibre lined with an interior omnidirectional dielectric mirror. Confinement of light in the hollow core is provided by the large photonic bandgaps established by the multiple alter-nating submicrometre-thick layers of a high-refractive-index glass and a low-refractive-index polymer. The fundamental and high-order transmission windows are determined by the layer dimensions and can be scaled from 0.75 to 10.6mm in wavelength.The transmission losses are found to be less than 1.0 dB m 21, orders of magnitude lower than those of the intrinsic fibre material, thus demonstrating that low attenuation can be achieved through structural design rather than high-transparency material selection.
