A particular photonic crystal fiber (PCF) designed with all circle air holes is proposed. Its characteristics are studied by full-vector finite element method (FEM) with anisotropic perfectly matched layer (PML). The simulation results indicated that the proposed PCF can realize high birefringence (up to 10⁻²), high nonlinearity (50W⁻¹·km⁻¹ and 68W⁻¹·km⁻¹ in X and Y polarizations respectively) and low confinement loss (less than 10⁻³dB/km at 1.55um wavelength).

Light trapping within waveguides is a key practice of modern optics, both scientifically and technologically. Photonic crystal fibers traditionally rely on total internal reflection (index-guiding fibers) or a photonic bandgap (photonic-bandgap fibers) to achieve field confinement. Here, we report the discovery of a new light trapping within fibers by the so-called Dirac point of photonic band structures. Our analysis reveals that the Dirac point can establish suppression of radiation losses and consequently a novel guided mode for propagation in photonic crystal fibers. What is known as the Dirac point is a conical singularity of a photonic band structure where wave motion obeys the famous Dirac equation. We find the unexpected phenomenon of wave localization at this point beyond photonic bandgaps. This guiding relies on the Dirac point rather than total internal reflection or photonic bandgaps, thus providing a sort of advancement in conceptual understanding over the traditional fiber guiding. The result presented here demonstrates the discovery of a new type of photonic crystal fibers, with unique characteristics that could lead to new applications in fiber sensors and lasers. The Dirac equation is a special symbol of relativistic quantum mechanics. Because of the similarity between band structures of a solid and a photonic crystal, the discovery of the Dirac-point-induced wave trapping in photonic crystals could provide novel insights into many relativistic quantum effects of the transport phenomena of photons, phonons, and electrons.

We have demonstrated the realization of a plasmonic random polymer fiber laser (RPFL) based on gold nanoparticles (NPs) doped one-dimensional disordered gain polymer optical fiber (POF). In this work, the plasmonic RPFL is fabricated by directly drawing from a laser dye and gold NPs system codoped POF. The random lasing can be obtained from the waveguide-plasmon-scattering in the POF system. Meanwhile, the dye doped fiber in the presence gold NPs has high photostability.

The discovery of a new type of soliton occurring in periodic systems is reported. This type of nonlinear excitation exists at a Dirac point of a photonic band structure, and features an oscillating tail that damps algebraically. Solitons in periodic systems are localized states traditionally supported by photonic bandgaps. Here, it is found that besides photonic bandgaps, a Dirac point in the band structure of triangular optical lattices can also sustain solitons. Apart from their theoretical impact within the soliton theory, they have many potential uses because such solitons are possible in both Kerr material and photorefractive crystals that possess self-focusing and self-defocusing nonlinearities. The findings enrich the soliton family and provide information for studies of nonlinear waves in many branches of physics.

Based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), the slow light effect in photonic crystal fibre (PCF), which is filled with highly nonlinear liquid-carbon disuphide in the core region, is investigated. Maximum allowable pump power for undistorted output pulse, minimum value of pump power required to initiate the SBS effect, Brillouin gain and time-tonic delay experienced by the pulse in the designed liquid-core photonic crystal fibre, are all calculated numerically. We have found that the maximum time-delay up to ∼134.4 ns at 1.064 μm can be obtained using 1 m long liquid-core PCF pumped with only 65.8 mW, which is lower than the value reported in the literature for achieving such a high delay time. The results indicate that liquid-core PCF is capable of generating tunable time-delay that is adjusted by the pump power and structural parameters of the proposed liquid-core PCF.