Modal Analysis of a Novel Soft Glass Photonic Crystal Fiber With Liquid Crystal Core

A novel design of highly birefringent soft glass photonic crystal fiber is presented and analyzed using the full-vectorial finite-difference method. The suggested design has a central hole infiltrated with a nematic liquid crystal that produces high tunability with the temperature and external electric field. The analyzed parameters are the effective index, birefringence, effective mode area, and confinement losses for the two fundamental polarized modes. The effects of the structure geometry, and temperature, on the modal properties are investigated. The numerical results reveal that the reported design offers high birefringence of 0.045 at the operating wavelength of 1.55 mu m with low losses for the two fundamental polarized modes.