Applicability of classical optical fiber theories to holey fibers

We discuss the applicability of well-established classical optical fiber theories to holey fibers. By appropriately defining the V parameter, we can easily estimate the fundamental properties of holey fibers, such as effective index, group-velocity dispersion, mode field diameter, beam divergence, and splice loss, through simple empirical expressions without the need for heavy numerical computations. We confirm the validity of the V parameter defined here by comparing the calculated results with the earlier experimental and numerical results. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.