Highly-birefringent and ultra-wideband low-loss photonic crystal fiber with rhombic and elliptical holes

In this paper we propose a novel type of highly-birefringent and ultra-wideband low-loss photonic crystal fiber (PCF) incorporating elliptical holes in the cladding and rhombic holes located along the transversal axes. The PCF is simulated and analyzed with finite-difference time-domain method. The properties of PCFs were investigated for various distribution, shape and size of air holes. For the optimized PCF design the birefringence reaches 8×10−3 at 1550 nm and the confinement loss is as low as 5×10−4dB/km with single mode operation in an ultra-broad transmission band (500 nm–1800 nm). Furthermore, the single mode and single polarization transmission could be achieved in this PCF at longer wavelengths beyond 1600 nm. This kind of PCF has potentials in optical long haul communication and optical fiber sensing.