Fabrication and investigation of large-mode-area photonic crystal fibers

Abstract

This paper describes design, fabrication and testing of all-silica large-mode-area (LMA) photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) with three full hexagonal air capillaries rings in a cladding. The design is based on $V$ (normalized frequency) and $W$ (normalized transverse attenuation constant) parameters. Capillaries and rods for a PCF preform were fabricated using this preliminary design. The designed preform was stretched into LMA PCF fibers and then some values for fabricated PCFs, such as geometric dimensions, numerical aperture and attenuation have been measured. Measured values are compared with ones preliminary calculated by using $V$ and $W$ parameters. It is shown that the obtained experimental results are very near to calculated ones.