Near-zero dispersion flattened, low-loss porous-core waveguide design for terahertz signal transmission

Abstract

© 2017 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). We demonstrate a photonic crystal fiber with near-zero flattened dispersion, ultralower effective material loss (EML), and negligible confinement loss for a broad spectrum range. The use of cyclic olefin copolymer Topas with improved core confinement significantly reduces the loss characteristics and the use of higher air filling fraction results in flat dispersion characteristics. The properties such as dispersion, EML, confinement loss, modal effective area, and single-mode operation of the fiber have been investigated using the full-vector finite element method with the perfectly matched layer absorbing boundary conditions. The practical implementation of the proposed fiber is achievable with existing fabrication techniques as only circular-shaped air holes have been used to design the waveguide. Thus, it is expected that the proposed terahertz waveguide can potentially be used for flexible and efficient transmission of terahertz waves.