Chalcogenide microstructured optical fibers : from linear to nonlinear properties

In this talk, we review the linear properties of chalcogenide microstructured optical fibers (MOFs) of several types. We mainly focus our talk on mid-infrared applications of such fibers. We start with the general properties of solid core MOFs made of these high index glasses and compare them with the ones of silica. Then, we give some details concerning a solid core MOF made of TAS glass. Next, we describe the first guiding suspended chalcogenide MOF and explain how it was designed for supercontinuum generation in the mid-infrared. Both linear and nonlinear properties of As2S3 suspended core MOFs are also numerically studied. In the next part, We describe the design of the first chalcogenide hollow core photonic crystal fiber made to guide light around 9.3 µm. We describe how it was designed and the effect of the core size on the fundamental mode properties including loss and field map shape. During this talk, we also give and comment a detailed comparison of the figures of merit of highly nonlinear chalcogenide MOFs.