A large birefringence and high nonlinearity liquid crystal photonic crystal fiber with low confinement loss

Abstract Through filling the liquid crystal E7 into the defect position of the photonic crystal fiber (PCF) which possesses full circular air hole structure, a PCF with adjustable optical performance is designed. The effect of external temperature and magnetic field on its optical properties is analyzed by adopting the finite element method. The results reveal that its confinement loss is reduced, and the dispersion performance is also improved. Besides, the high birefringence bandwidth can covers all the S, C, L and U communication bands and the it reaches to the order of 10−1 at the wavelength of 1.55 μm; a high nonlinear coefficients (about 3 × 105 W−1km−1 and 9 × 105 W−1km−1 in X, Y polarization directions respectively) are also obtained. Most importantly, the optical performance can be adjusted without changing its structural parameters. It provides a new method for obtaining PCFs with good optical performance, and it has potential applications in the fields of polarization control, dispersion management, super-continuum generation and optical fiber sensing.