Design of a highly nonlinear twin bow-tie polymer photonic quasi-crystal fiber with high birefringence

A twin bow-tie polymer-based photonic quasi-crystal fiber with high birefringence, high nonlinearity and low dispersion as well as maintaining single mode operation is presented in the wavelength range 1.8-2.2 mu m. Through optimizing fiber structure parameter using a full-vector finite-element method combined with perfectly matched layers boundary condition, the birefringence is as high as 2.43 x 10(-3), the nonlinearity is as high as 118 W-1 km(-1), and the dispersion is only 25 ps/nm/km at 2 mu m with the holes pitch of 3.3 mu m. From the point of fabrication, the influences of deviation of each air hole diameter are discussed to verify the robustness of the photonic quasi-crystal fiber designed. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.