Speciality fibres aid laboratory research

Newport Corporation now supports the burgeoning market forphotonic crystal fibres (PCFs) with the introduction of acomprehensive line of prepackaged products targeted at laboratoryresearch.

The initial product offering comprises all PCF types,including endless single-mode fibre, hollow-core fibre,polarisation-preserving fibre, photonic-bandgap fibre and fibrewith highly nonlinear performance.

Specific products include barefibres as short as 1m, fibres with sealed ends, and connectorisedfibres.

These PCF products are fabricated by Crystal Fibre, underan exclusive agreement with Newport Corp.

Ron Hartmayer, Directorof Marketing, Photonic Products, notes: "Applications forPCFs are at a very nascent and critical stage.

As with previousnew photonics technologies, Newport's goal is to support andnurture these applications at the research level with theconvenience of 'off the shelf' products".

Photoniccrystal fibres are fibres containing air voids or holes.

Theseholes can serve two purposes.

A central hole can be used to forma hollow core fibre suitable for carrying very high laser powerlevels, as in robotic materials processing.

These types ofhollow-core fibre can also feature very low transmission lossesover extended distances.

Arrays of tiny through holes are alsoused to lower the effective refractive index of the glass fibrecore and/or cladding, without the problems introduced by doping.This approach can be used to provide single mode performance overa very large wavelength range.

Other fibres yield very highnonlinear coefficients and can be used to generate ultrabroadband(supercontinuum) light when pumped with femtosecond pulsedlasers.

Ytterbium doped PCFs are also available to form the basisof high performance lasers or optical gain amplifiers.