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Photonic crystal fibres

Nature volume 424, pages 847–851 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Photonic crystal fibres have wavelength-scale morphological microstructure running down their length. This structure enables light to be controlled within the fibre in ways not previously possible or even imaginable. Our understanding of what an optical fibre is and what it does is changing because of the development of this new technology, and a broad range of applications based on these principles is being developed.

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Figure 1: Propagation of light in an optical fibre.
Figure 2: Conventional fibre and PCFs.
Figure 3: Different designs of PCF waveguide.
Figure 4: PCFs from the University of Bath.
Figure 5: Predicted loss from the fundamental 'mode' in a silica capillary and reported losses from photonic bandgap fibres with hollow cores in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002.
Figure 6: Measured properties of a hollow-core bandgap fibre around 850 nm wavelength.

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Acknowledgements

There have been numerous contributions to my understanding of this topic from my colleagues at Bath, including Philip Russell, Tim Birks, and others. I would like to thank Blazephotonics for help with the fibre illustrated in Figure 2c. This work was partly funded by the UK EPSRC.

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  1. Department of Physics, University of Bath, Claverton Down, BA2 7AY, Bath, UK

    Jonathan C. Knight

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Knight, J. Photonic crystal fibres. Nature 424, 847–851 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01940

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