Modeling of Circular Photonic Crystal Fiber Structure
for High Non-linearity
Amir . A, S. Revathi, Srinivasa Rao Inbathini & Abhijith Chandran
E-mail : amirtvm88@gmail.com, srevathi@vit.ac.in , israo@vit.ac.in, abhijithchandran87@gmail.com
Abstract - This paper compares the PCF characteristics
such as chromatic dispersion, effective area, confinement
loss and nonlinearity for circular PCF having 5 rings of air
holes and 4 rings of air holes. Proposed structures are
simulated by using Comsol multiphysics. Method used for
simulation is finite element method (FEM) . For both the
cases of circular structures air filling fraction i.e. d/=0.5.
From the numerically simulated results its shown that
circular PCF with 5 rings of air holes provides large
negative dispersion, which is of the value of -
150ps/(km.nm), hence such PCF have high potential to be
used as a dispersion compensating fiber in optical
communication systems. Circular PCF with 5 rings of air
holes offers low confinement loss of the order of 10 -10
dB/m. Circular PCF with 5 rings of air holes offers low
effective area. In the case of nonlinearity circular PCF with
5 rings of air holes has a value of 38.38 W-1km-1 and that
for circular PCF with 4 rings of air holes has 14.47 W-1km-
1
at 1550 nm. From the above optical properties for both
the structures, it is seen that structure with 5 rings of air
holes is suitable for majority of application such as
dispersion compensation fiber and supercontinuum
generation. Nonlinearity can be increased by increasing the
number of rings. By increasing nonlinearity value it
became suitable for supercontinuum generation.
Keywords - Confinement loss ,Circular PCF Dispersion,
Effective Area, Nonlinearity, Photonic crystal fibers.
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays photonic crystal fibers (PCF) [1,2,3] is
of much attention all around the world.PCF which is
also known as holey fibers are special type micro
structured fibers. It consist of central defect region
surrounded by multiple air-holes, which run along
entire fiber length. Main difference between a PCF and
the conventional one is the index profile of
core/cladding.PCF can offer more flexibility than
conventional fibers in design of optical properties such
as birefringence, dispersion and confinement loss. PCF
with low and flattened dispersion are useful for
improving optical fiber communication capabilities. It
has achieved increased attention because of its novel
88
optical characteristics [4,5,6].PCF guide optical waves
through one of the two methods: effective-index
guidance and photonic band gap guidance. PCF has two
parameters to define its geometrical structure, they are
diameter of air hole(d) and pitch length().By varying
this two parameter PCF with different properties can be
obtained. Advantage of using Photonic crystal fiber is
that we can achieve very good properties in
birefringence, dispersion, nonlinearity.
Typically, in PCF air holes are arranged on the
vertex of an equilateral triangle with six air holes in the
first ring around the core, which is called the HPCF.
Beside the hexagonal structure other structures such as,
square lattice, cob web, honeycomb , octagonal and
decagonal [7,8,9,10] are proposed for the design of
PCF.
In this paper various properties of PCF like
chromatic dispersion, effective area, confinement loss
and nonlinearity has been studied for circular PCF[11]
having 5 and 4 ring of air holes. Finite element method
(FEM) with perfectly matched boundary layers (PML)
are used for analyzing the dispersion and leakage
properties of PCF. It has been shown that circular PCF
with 5 ring air holes provide large negative dispersion
compared to 4 ring circular PCF structure. Based on the
numerically simulated result nonlinearity value for
circular PCF with 5 rings of air holes is greater than that
of 4 rings of air hole structure. By increasing the
number of air hole nonlinearity can be increased for a
circular PCF, hence can be used for supercontinium
generation.
II. DESIGN OF PCF STRUCTURES
Proposed model for circular PCF having 5 rings of
air hole and 4 rings of air holes is shown below. The
structure is surrounded by a perfectly matched
layer(PML).This layer acts as absorbing region.
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 International Journal of Advanced Electrical and Electronics Engineering, (IJAEEE)
Fig. 1: Proposed structure of circular PCF with 5 ring of air
holes,pitch =1.45 m and hole diameter d=0.725m.
Proposed PCF structures which is of circular shape
with 5 ring of air holes and 4 ring of air holes are shown
in Fig.1 and Fig 2. D and denotes diameter and pitch
length for the structures. Background material used is
silica. For the both the PCF value of diameter i.e.
d=0.725m and that of pitch length i.e. =1.45 m.
PML region which acts as boundary for this structure is
of thickness 2m.The validation of the design is done by
using FEM with PML for accurate modelling of PCF.
Fig. 2: Proposed structure of circular PCF with 4 ring of air
holes, pitch =1.45 m and hole diameter d=0.725m.
89
Fig. 3: Intensity profile for 5 ring air hole circular PCF
structure
Fig.3 is obtained by using Comsol 3.5a based on
FEM. It shows the intensity and the shape of output light
in two dimension. From comsol we get the values for
real and imaginary part of neff for different wavelength
readings.
III. EQUATIONS OF CHROMATIC DISPERSION,
CONFINEMENT LOSS,EFFECTIVE AREA AND
NONLINEARITY
Chromatic dispersion can be calculated easily from
neff versus the wavelength value as shown in the below
equation
(1)
Where Re (neff) is the real part of effective mode
index, is the wavelength and c is the velocity of light
in vacuum
Confinement loss depends on number of air holes
rings, air hole diameter and hole to hole spacing.
Confinement loss, which is a fraction of leaky modes is
calculated from the imaginary part of neff by using
equation below
(2)
where Im is the imaginary part of effective mode index
, and 0 is the free space wave number, which is equal
to 2/.
Effective measure of the area over which the
fundamental mode is confined during its propagation
can be calculated from effective area . The effective area
equation is given as
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 International Journal of Advanced Electrical and Electronics Engineering, (IJAEEE)

m2 (3) 150
=4 ring
=5 ring
100

Dispersion(ps/(km.nm))
50

Where E is the electric field in the medium which is 0

obtained by solving an Eigen value problem from
-50
Maxwell equations.
-100

Nonlinear (6) optical effects always appear 5when -150

the power density of light is large enough, regardless of
-200
the material .From equation 5 its clear that nonlinearity 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
Wavelength(nm)
1.6 1.8 2

and effective area are inversely related and is given as Fig. 6: Dispersion variation with the wavelength for
circular PCF with 5 rings and 4 ring of air holes(
W-1km-1 (5) D/=0.5)
Fig 6 shows the wavelength dependence for
is the wavelength, and n2 is the nonlinear refractive chromatic dispersion of circular PCF having 5 and 4
index of the core region.n2 for silica is 2.8x 10 -20m2W-1 rings of air holes and having air filling fraction i.e
D/=0.5. From fig it is clear that dispersion curve in
IV. SIMULATED RESULTS circular PCF with 5 rings of air holes shows large
negative dispersion. Circular PCF with 5 ring air hole
By using Comsol multiphysics effective refractive offers large negative dispersion, which is of the value of
index of the fiber can be found out, which are useful for -150ps/(km.nm). Dispersion curve crosses zero at
studying the characteristics of PCF. 1500nm for circular PCF with 5 rings of air holes and
for circular PCF with 4 ring of air hole curve crosses
Fig. 5 shows the relation between neff vs. wavelength for
zero at 1400nm.
circular PCF having 4 and 5 rings of air holes. From
figure it is seen that neff value is greater for circular PCF
having 4 ring air holes than circular PCF with 5 ring air
-4
holes every wavelength. Maximum neff value for circular 10
PCF with 5 ring of air hole is 1.42 and that for 4 ring of -5
10 =4 ring
air hole is 1.44. =5 ring
Confinement loss(dB/m)

-6
1.45 10
=4 ring
1.44 =5 ring -7
10
1.43
-8
1.42
10

1.41 -9
10
neff

1.4
-10
10
1.39 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850
Wavelength(nm)
1.38

1.37
Fig. 7:Comparison of confinement loss for circular
PCF with five rings and 4 ring of air holes( D/=0.5)
1.36
800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Wavelength(nm)

Fig. 5 neff vs. wavelength for circular l PCF with five

rings and 4 rings of air holes ( D/=0.5)

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90
 International Journal of Advanced Electrical and Electronics Engineering, (IJAEEE)

value is greater for circular PCF with 5 rings of air

14 holes. At 1550nm nonlinearity value for circular PCF
=4 ring
=5 ring with 5 rings of air holes is 38.38W-1km-1 and that for
12 circular PCF having 4 rings of air holes is 14.47W -1km-
1
. Maximum nonlinearity value obtained for circular
10 PCF with 5 rings of air hole is 90W -1km-1.
Effective area(m2)

8 Table 1 shows different optical properties for 5 rings

of air holes at 1550nm.
6
TABLE 1
4 Symbol Optical Values
properties
2
800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Wavelength(nm)
D Dispersion -150ps/(km.nm)
Fig. 8: Effective area vs wavelength for circular PCF Lc Confinement 2.357*10-10
with five rings and 4 ring of air holes( D/=0.5) loss dB/m
Fig 7 shows the comparison of confinement loss for Aeff Effective area 2.8500m
circular PCF with 5 and 4 rings of air holes. With
infinite number of air holes PCF may have zero Nonlinearity 38.38W-1km-1
confinement loss .But; practically confinement loss is
finite since numbers of air holes are finite, which in this V. CONCLUSION
case is 5 and 4. From Fig 7 its evident that confinement Comparison for the Circular PCFs with 5 and 4
loss is lower for Circular PCF with 5 ring of air holes. rings of air holes and with d/=0.5 are made by taking
At wavelength 1550nm circular PCF structure with 5 into account optical properties such as chromatic
rings of air holes has confinement loss of 2.357*10-10 dispersion, confinement losses, effective area and
dB/m and that of 4 rings of air holes is 1.4*10-5 dB/m. nonlinearity. From the numerical simulated results it has
Fig. 8 shows the wavelength dependence of effective been shown that with the same geometrical parameters
area for circular PCF having 5 and 4 rings of air holes CPCFs with 5 ring of air holes have lower chromatic
.It is evident from figure that effective area for circular dispersion, effective area. Negative dispersion offered
PCF having 5 rings of air holes is lower than that having by circular PCF with 5 rings of air holes is -
4 rings of air holes. 150ps/(km.nm)and that with 4 rings of air holes are -
13.26 ps/(km.nm).Circular PCFs with 5 rings of air
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holes offers low effective area and confinement loss.
=4ring Confinement loss values for circular PCF with 5 and 4
80 =5ring
rings of air holes at 1550nm are 2.357*10-10 dB/m and
70 1.4*10-5 dB/m . Nonlinearity for circular PCF with 5
rings of air holes is greater than that of circular PCF
nonlinearity (w-1km-1)

60
with 4 ring of air hole. Value of nonlinearity at 1550nm
50 for circular PCF with 5 rings of air hole is 38.38w-1km-1
40 and that for 4 rings of air hole circular PCF is 14.47w-
1
km-1. From the simulated result we can conclude that if
30
we increase the number of air hole rings we get large
20 nonlinearity. Further investigations in constructing
10
highly nonlinear fiber with the Circular PCF are
underway. So that circular PCF can be used for
0 supercontinium generation.
800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
wavelength(nm)
VI. REFERENCES
Fig. 9: Nonlinearity vs wavelength for circular PCF
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pp.1547-1549, Oct. 1996.
it is clear that as effective area increases nonlinearity
decreases .It can be seen from figure 9 that nonlinearity

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