Phase Sensitivity of Fundamental Mode of Hollow Core Photonic Bandgap Fiber To Internal Gas Pressure

Phase sensitivity of fundamental mode of hollow-
core photonic bandgap fiber to internal

gas pressure
Yingchun Cao,1,2 Wei Jin,1,2,* Fan Yang,1 and Hoi Lut Ho2
1
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, China
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
*
eewjin@polyu.edu.hk
Abstract: The response of the commercial HC-1550-02 hollow-core

photonic bandgap fiber (HC-PBF) to gas pressure applied internally to the
hollow-core was experimentally investigated. The transmission spectrum of
the HC-PBF was hardly affected by the pressure, while the accumulated
phase of the fundamental optical mode showed a normalized pressure
sensitivity of 1.044 × 10−2 rad/(Pa·m), which is over two orders of
magnitude higher than that to the external pressure. Numerical simulation
showed that the observed high sensitivity to pressure is due to the pressure-
induced refractive index change of air inside the hollow-core. This research
could find potential applications in high sensitivity static and dynamic
pressure measurement and optical phase manipulation.
©2014 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.0060) Fiber optics and optical communications; (060.2370) Fiber optics
sensors; (120.5475) Pressure measurement.
References and links

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#201402 - $15.00 USD Received 14 Nov 2013; revised 23 Dec 2013; accepted 31 Jan 2014; published 23 May 2014
(C) 2014 OSA 2 June 2014 | Vol. 22, No. 11 | DOI:10.1364/OE.22.013190 | OPTICS EXPRESS 13190
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1. Introduction
Hollow-core photonic bandgap fibers (HC-PBFs) have unique optical properties and can be
used to create novel sensing devices or improve the performance of existing sensors [1, 2].
For example, HC-PBFs can confine an optical beam in the low-index fiber core, and the
hollow-core and cladding-holes can be selectively filled with liquid or gaseous materials.
These features make HC-PBFs ideal platforms for investigation light-material interaction
[3–6], as well as high sensitivity chemical and biological sensing [7–9]. Air-silica HC-PBFs
have low temperature sensitivity and ultra-low Kerr and Faraday coefficients, thus could be
used to improve the performance of fiber-optic gyroscopes [10].
Several research groups have studied the effects of pressure on the transmission
characteristics of HC-PBFs. These include the influence of air pressure on soliton formation
[11], sensing based on pressure-induced transmission loss in non-conventional air-guided
transmission windows [12], and phase sensitivity of the fundamental mode to external
pressure [13] and acoustic wave [14, 15]. Compared with solid silica optical fibers, HC-PBFs
have much lower effective Young’s modulus, and hence enhanced phase sensitivity to
external pressure [13–15]. Recent experimental with modified HC-1550-02 fiber
demonstrated (acoustic) pressure sensitivity of 1.72 × 10−3 rad/(Pa·m) [15]. This is ~25 dB
higher than the conventional single mode fibers (SMFs) [14] and could significantly enhance
the performance of optical fiber acoustic sensor systems.
In this paper, we report the results of our recent experimental investigation on the phase
sensitivity of fundamental mode to pressure applied internally to the hollow-core of a HC-
PBF. It was found that, for the same fiber length, the phase sensitivity to internal pressure is
over two orders of magnitude more sensitive than to external pressure. This would have
important applications in high sensitivity static and dynamic pressure detection, phase
manipulation of guided mode, and other processes that involve the change of gas pressure. To
better understand the physics behind the pressure sensitivity we also developed an analytical
model and carried out numerical simulation to compare with the experimental results.
2. Experimental procedures and results
The HC-PBF used in our experiments is the HC-1550-02 fiber from NKT Photonics and a
microscopic image of the cross-section of the fiber is shown in Fig. 1. The air-hole pitch and
core diameter were measured to be ~3.8 µm and 10.8 µm, respectively.
Fig. 1. Microscopic image of the cross section of a HC-PBF (HC-1550-02) with polymer
coating removed. I and II denote the regions of honeycomb inner-cladding and pure silica
outer-cladding. r1, r2 and r3 are the radius of the fiber core, honeycomb inner-cladding and
silica outer-cladding, respectively.
2.1 Preparation of HC-PBF sample

As our intention was to study the response of the HC-PBF to pressure variation inside the
hollow-core, we need to block the cladding holes but leave the central hollow-core open for
applying gas pressure to the core. This was done by use of an arc discharge technique similar
to that described in [16]. A cleaved HC-PBF was firstly fusion spliced to a SMF with a fusion
current of 14.5 mA, time duration of 0.3 s and offset of 50 µm. The arc discharge was offset
from the splice joint so that, in a section adjacent to the splicing joint, the cladding air holes
are collapsed completely while the central hollow-core is stilled open, as shown in Fig. 2(a).
The HC-PBF was then cleaved near the edge of the collapsed region, as indicated by the
green wedge in Fig. 2(a). This was achieved by scanning a focused femtosecond infrared laser
beam across the fiber transversely to induce a damage at which the fiber broke upon bending.
Figures 2(b) and 2(c) show respectively the end and side views of the cleaved end. It is clear
that the cladding holes are fully blocked at the fiber end while the hollow-core remains open.
The other end of the HC-PBF was processed identically to ensure the air-core is open while
all the cladding holes are completely blocked.
Fig. 2. Procedures for HC-PBF end processing. (a) The cladding holes of HC-PBF are blocked
by fusion splicing to a SMF; (b) end view and (c) side view of the HC-PBF end cleaved at a
position indicated by the green wedge in (a).
The so treated HC-PBF was then butt connected to SMFs at both ends by following the
procedures shown in Figs. 3(a)–3(c): (i) two identical fiber ferrules with inner diameter of
125 µm were plugged into a mechanical splicer with a side slot as shown in Fig. 3(a); the
splicer aligns the two ferrules and holds them together tightly with a small gap left between
the ferrules. The side-slot allows easy visual observation and also facilities gas diffusion into
the HC-PBF; (ii) with the aid of a microscope and two translation stages, SMF and HC-PBF
were inserted carefully into the fiber ferrules from opposite sides as depicted in Fig. 3(b), and
a gap of ~20 µm was left between the two fiber ends via inspection from the microscope;
(iii) the fibers, ferrules and mechanical splicer were then fixed together with glue as shown in
Fig. 3(c). The other end of the HC-PBF was similarly connected to a SMF. The two
connection joints were then sealed into two separate gas chambers for applying pressure into
the hollow-core. The length of the HC-PBF used is ~95 cm. The total loss of the SMF/HC-
PBF/SMF sample around 1550 nm was measured to be ~20 dB, which is believed to be
mainly due to the loss at the connection joints. This HC-PBF sample was used to study the
response of HC-PBF to internal gas pressure.
Fig. 3. Procedures for connecting HC-PBF with SMF. (a) Two identical fiber ferrules were
plugged into a mechanic splicer to ensure the ferrules be aligned to each other and a distance
of a few hundreds of µm was left between the ferrules; (b) SMF and HC-PBF were inserted
into the ferrules from opposite sides and a small gap of ~20 µm was left between the two fiber
ends; (c) The fibers, ferrules and mechanical splicer were fixed together with glue (marked in
yellow).
2.2 Effect of internal pressure on transmission spectrum

The HC-PBF sample described in section 2.1 was connected to an optical broadband source
(BBS) and optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) as shown in Fig. 4. A bottle of high pressure N2
gas was connected to the two gas chambers and the gas pressure level inside the chambers
(and hence in the hollow-core) was adjusted and monitored with a standard pressure gauge.
Fig. 4. Experimental setup for studying the effect of varying gas pressure inside the hollow-
core on the transmission spectrum of the HC-1550-02 fiber. BBS: broadband source, OSA:
optical spectrum analyzer.
The transmission spectrums of the HC-PBF at different applied pressure levels were
measured and shown in Fig. 5. The fiber sample shows a wide transmission window from
1420 to 1660 nm. The loss peaks located in the 1440-1490 nm spectrum range correspond to
coupling from the guiding mode to lossy surface modes [17, 18]. The transmission window is
hardly shifted when the pressure level is varied from 0 to 4 bar, while the transmission loss
increases slightly with increasing internal pressure, which agrees with the results in [12].
Fig. 5. Transmission spectrum of HC-1550-02 for different applied internal pressure levels.
2.3 Phase sensitivity of the fundamental mode to internal pressure

The setup used to investigate the phase sensitivity of the fundamental mode to internal
pressure is shown in Fig. 6. The pressurization process is similar to that of section 2.2 but the
fiber sample is now placed in one arm of an optical fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer
(MZI). The other interferometer arm is a section of SMF with its optical-path-length
approximately matched to that of the HC-PBF arm. Light from a 1.53-µm distributed
feedback (DFB) laser was split equally by a 50/50 coupler and recombined via a second 70/30
fiber coupler, to partly compensate the large loss in HC-PBF arm, and fed into a
photodetector (PD). The coupling ratios of the couplers were not optimized but the
interference fringes were found to have acceptable contrast and are sufficient for the current
experiment. The signal from the PD was recorded by an oscilloscope for further data
processing.
Fig. 6. Experimental setup for studying the phase response of HC-1550-02 to internal pressure.
When the gas pressure inside the hollow-core of HC-PBF was varied gradually, the output
intensity of the MZI changed sensitively and periodically, indicating a fast optical phase
variation has happened to the HC-PBF. Figure 7 shows the recorded intensity variation of the
MZI output when the gas pressure in the hollow-core was increased from 0 to 0.5 bar. The
pressurization process started at ~23 s and ended at ~40 s. It reveals that the light intensity
changed periodically with a quasi-sinusoidal waveform. The non-uniformity of the fringe
spacing indicates that the speed of pressure increase in the fiber core is not constant. At a
constant applied pressure, the output intensity was found varying randomly and slowly due to
environmental disturbance on the two arms of the fiber interferometers [19].
Fig. 7. Evolution of the output intensity of the MZI when the gas pressure inside the hollow-
core was increased from 0 to 0.5 bar.
To quantitatively investigate the relationship between the internal pressure in the hollow-
core and the phase variation, we increased the gas pressure step by step from 0 to 4 bar and
recorded the number of induced interference fringe change accordingly. Measurement over a
larger pressure range is possible but was not conducted due to the limitation of facilities
available in our lab. The accumulated phase variation in terms of number of interference
fringes for varying applied pressure is plotted in Fig. 8. The number of interference fringes
shows a linear dependence on the applied pressure, with a slope of 157.8 fringes per bar. The
variation of fringe numbers for decreasing pressure from 4 to 0 bar is also provided in Fig. 8.
In this case, the optical phase variation is reversed but the slope is approximately the same
with that of the pressure increasing case. The normalized phase sensitivity to pressure is
calculated to be 166.1 fringes per bar per meter, or 1.044 × 10−2 rad/(Pa·m). This sensitivity is
over two orders of magnitude higher than that to external pressure [13].
Fig. 8. Number of induced interference fringes as function of applied internal pressures.
3. Theoretical analysis and discussion

The accumulated phase of the fundamental mode in HC-PBF at wavelength λ after
propagating over a length L may be expressed as
2π
φ= neff L, (1)
λ
where neff is the effective refractive index of the fiber mode. The phase sensitivity to
pressure, normalized to the fiber length, may be expressed as
1 dφ 2π  neff dL dneff 
S= =  +  = S L + Sn . (2)
L dP λ  L dP dP 
The two terms on the right-hand side of Eq. (2) are respectively due to the pressure-
induced changes of the fiber length and the effective index of the fundamental mode. Since
the HC-PBF is fixed near its ends, the pressure applied from the two ends would have little or
no effect on its length. Furthermore, because that the Poisson’s ratios (ν r − z and ν θ − z ) of the
honeycomb cladding are approximately zero [14] and the pressure is applied internally from
the hollow-core, the pressure-induced longitudinal strain ε z is also negligible. Hence, the
length term SL in Eq. (2) may be regarded to be negligible, i.e., SL = 0. We only need to
consider the refractive index term Sn.
The change of the effective refractive index due to internal pressure may be attributed to
three factors: (i) refractive index change of gas (air) within the hollow-core Sair, (ii) structural
deformation of the honeycomb inner cladding Sstructure, and (iii) refractive index change of
silica material due to strain-optic effect Ssilica. The normalized phase sensitivity to internal
pressure may then be rewritten as
2π  dneff   dneff   dneff  

S = S n = S air + S structure + S silica =   +  +   . (3)
λ  dP  air  dP  strcture  dP  silica 
Firstly, we concern the contribution from the refractive index change of air, i.e., Sair. From
an updated Edlén equation, the dependence of the refractive index of air on temperature and
pressure at wavelength λ (in µm) is expressed as [20–22]:
10−8 P  2406147 15998 
nair (λ ) = 1 + ⋅  8342.54 + + 
96095.43  130 − (1/λ ) 38.9 − (1/λ ) 2 
2
(4)
 1 + 10−10 (60.1 − 0.972t ) P 
⋅ ,
 1 + 0.003661t 
where P is air pressure in Pa and t is temperature in °C. At room temperature of 25 °C and
wavelength of 1.53 µm, the refractive indices of air were calculated for pressure from
0 to 4 bar and are listed as the second column in Table 1. With these refractive index values
of air and assuming the pressure is applied only to the hollow-core, we calculated the
effective refractive indexes of the fundamental mode by a numerical model with parameters
of HC-1550-02 given in [18], and the results are listed in the third column in Table 1. The
changes of the effective refractive index of the fundamental mode at different applied
pressure are also shown in the last column. From these results, the normalized phase
sensitivity due to pressure induced change in air refractive index is calculated to be
1.031 × 10−2 rad/(Pa·m). This value is very close to that obtained experimentally in section
2.3, indicating that the air-index change played a major role in the observed pressure
sensitivity.
Table 1. Calculated refractive indices of air and the effective refractive index of the
fundamental mode of the HC-1550-02 fiber at different pressures.
Pressure nair-1 neff Δneff
(bar)
0 0 0.99455 0
1 2.6063 × 10−4 0.994801 2.51 × 10−4
2 5.2145 × 10−4 0.995052 5.02 × 10−4
3 7.8246 × 10−4 0.995303 7.53 × 10−4
4 10.4365 × 10−4 0.995554 10.04 × 10−4
To estimate the magnitude of Sstructure and Ssilica, the mechanical deformation and strain
distributions over the honeycomb region, i.e., region I indicated in Fig. 1, need to be
evaluated. This was done by using the elasticity model of the HC-PBF as described in
[14, 23] with the Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio of the honeycomb region expressed as
[14, 23, 24]:
 3
 Er = Eθ = (1 − η ) Esi = Et
3
 2 (5)
 Ez = (1 − η ) Esi
and
ν r −θ = ν θ − r = 1

ν z −θ = ν z − r = ν si , (6)
ν = ν ≈ 0
 r−z θ −z
where η is air-filling ratio of the honeycomb cladding, Esi and ν si are the Young’s modulus
and Poisson’s ratio of silica material. The air-filling ratio of the honeycomb cladding in HC-
1550-02 fiber is well over 90%, which means that Er and Ez are very small and the
honeycomb region is highly compressive. The approaching zero values of ν r − z and ν θ − z show
that strain in the transverse plane would induce little or no strain in the longitudinal direction,
which supports our earlier assumption of SL = 0.
The stress expression in different regions can be written as:
σ ri = Ai / r 2 + Bi
 i
σ θ = − Ai / r + Bi , i = I, II,
2
(7)
 i
σ z = Ci
where Ai , Bi and Ci are constants, I and II represent the honeycomb inner-cladding and
silica outer-cladding regions, respectively. By substituting the above equations into the
Hooke’s law, we obtain the strain tensor for the honeycomb layer as:
 I σ rI ν θI − rσ θI ν zI − rσ zI 2 AI ν si CI
ε r = − − = −
 Et Et Ez Et r 2 Ez
 σ θ ν r −θ σ r ν z −θ σ z
I I I I I
2 AI ν si CI
ε θ = − − =− −
I
(8)
 Et Et Ez Et r 2 Ez
 σ ν σ ν σ
I I I I I
C
ε zI = z − r − z r − θ − z θ = I
 Ez Et Et Ez
and for the silica cladding layer as
 II 1 1  AII 
ε r = E σ r −ν si (σ θ + σ z )  = E (1 + ν si ) r 2 + (1 −ν si ) BII −ν si CII 
II II II
 si si  
 II 1 1  A 
σ θII −ν si (σ rII + σ zII )  =
εθ =  E  − (1 + ν si ) r 2 + (1 −ν si ) BII −ν si CII  . (9)
II
E 
 si si
 II 1 1
σ z −ν si (σ r + σ θ )  =
ε z =  E ( CII − 2ν si BII )
II II II
 Esi  si
Since the HC-PBF is fixed at both ends, the force applied to the fiber along the
longitudinal direction may be regarded as zero. Therefore, the boundary and continuity
conditions may be written as:
σ rI r = − P
 1
σ r r = 0
II
 3
 I
σ r r2 = σ r r2
II
. (10)
 I
εθ r2 = εθ r2
II
 I
σ z π ( r22 − r12 ) + σ zIIπ ( r32 − r22 ) = 0
With Eqs. (7)–(10), Ai , Bi and Ci , and hence the stress and strain fields over the
honeycomb and silica regions can be obtained. For different applied pressures in the hollow-
core, the radial and azimuthal strains ( ε r and εθ ), and the radial displacement ( ur = εθ r )
distribution for the entire cladding region are plotted in Fig. 9. As expected, the maximum
strain and displacement happen near the wall of hollow-core, and the maximum displacement
is less than 3 nm for an applied pressure of 4 bar, which is much smaller than the thinnest
strut of fiber structure.
Fig. 9. Distribution of (a) radial strain, (b) azimuthal strain and (c) radial displacement of HC-
PBF for different pressures applied to the air-core. The honeycomb inner-cladding is
5<r<35 μm, while the silica outer-cladding corresponds to 35<r<60 μm.
So far, we have obtained the strain distribution in the cross section of the HC-PBF. It
should be noted that the actual strain can only exist in the silica region, and the refractive
index of the silica will then be modified via strain-optic effect. The refractive index changes
may be estimated by using [13, 25]:
 1  6
Δ  2  =  pij [ε r εθ 0 0 0 0] ,
T
(11)
 n i j =1
where pij is strain-optic tensor and ε i (i = r, θ) are strain components obtained from Eq. (8).
Here ε z equals to zero considering the negligible longitudinal strain. Silica is an isotropic
material and the strain tensor has only two nonzero values, p11 and p12 . Thus, the changes of
the three components of silica refractive index may be written as
 1 3
Δnr = − 2 n0 ( p11ε r + p12ε θ )

 1 3
Δnθ = − n0 ( p12ε r + p11εθ ) , (12)
 2
 1 3
Δnz = − 2 n0 ( p12ε r + p12ε θ )

where n0 is the refractive index of silica under strain-free condition. With n0 = 1.444,
p11 = 0.121 and p12 = 0.27 for bulk silica material, we calculated the changes of refractive
index in silica for 4 bar internal pressure and the results are shown in Fig. 10. It is shown that
the change of the longitudinal component Δnz is zero while transverse components reduce
quickly with increasing radius. The maximum refractive index changes occur in the wall
surrounding the hollow-core and have value of ~1 × 10−4.
Fig. 10. The changes for individual refractive index component of silica in the honeycomb
cladding region for a 4 bar pressure applied in the hollow-core.
By importing the updated displacement and refractive index distribution of silica into the
numerical model of HC-PBF, we calculated the effective refractive index of the fundamental
mode under different pressure conditions. The effective mode index remains unchanged for
applied internal pressure level up to 4 bar. When the pressure level is increased to 30 bar, the
change of the mode index is ~10−6, corresponding to a phase sensitivity to pressure of
~1.4 × 10−6 rad/(Pa·m), by far less than the contribution of the pressure-induced refractive
index change of air within the hollow-core.
We also numerically simulated the pressure-induced deformation and the refractive index
distribution of silica webs with the Solid Mechanics model in COMSOL, and then imported
these values in the Electromagnetic Waves model to calculate the effective refractive index of
the fundamental mode. Figures 11(a) and 11(b) show the structural deformation and refractive
index change Δnx of silica near the core region, respectively, for an applied internal pressure
of 4 bar. It is found that the fiber structure is hardly modified by a 4-bar pressure and the most
Fig. 11. (a) Total displacement of the HC-PBF structure in the cross section (rainbow color
map), and (b) change of the refractive index (x-component) of silica webs due to strain-optic
effect (rainbow color map) for an applied pressure of 4 bar. An amplification factor of 20 is
applied to the structural deformation in Fig. 11(a) for better visibility. The electric field (red
arrows) and intensity (thermal color map with color bar shown under the panels) distributions
of the fundamental mode are also shown in Figs. 11(a) and 11(b).
evident deformation occurs at the innermost silica ring surrounding the fiber core with a
maximum displacement of ~10 nm. The largest refractive index change happens at the
“T-junctions” at the innermost silica wall and has a value of ~1 × 10−4. The effective
refractive index change of the fundamental mode under 4 bar pressure was found to be
beyond the numerical accuracy of 10−6, indicating again that the effect of structure
deformation and silica refractive index change due to internal pressure on the effective
refractive index is negligible.
From the above numerical analysis, we may conclude that, for a pressure level of several
bar applied to the hollow-core, the structural deformation and the perturbation of silica
refractive index are very small and would cause negligible effect on the transmission window
of the HC-PBF and the effective refractive index of its fundamental mode. The effective
refractive index of the fundamental mode is affected dominantly by the pressure-induced
refractive index change of air inside the hollow-core, which determines the phase sensitivity
of the fundamental mode to internal pressure. These results agree with the experimental
results in section 2.
Under the same experimental conditions, we carried out further experiments with the
same HC-1550-02 fiber but without sealing any of the cladding holes. In this case, the
pressure is simultaneously applied to all the cladding holes as well as the hollow-core, thus
the structural deformation may be neglected in this case. We found that the transmission
spectrum was not affected at all for a pressure level up to 4 bar, and the normalized phase
sensitivity to pressure is 1.055 × 10−2 rad/(Pa·m). We also numerically calculated the phase
sensitivity to pressure by assuming that pressure is applied to all the air-holes and the result is
1.072 × 10−2 rad/(Pa·m). These values are very close to the ones for the sealed cladding holes,
as shown in Table 2, and further confirm that the pressure-induced change of air refractive
index is the dominant factor that determines the effective index of the fiber mode and hence
the phase sensitivity to internal pressure.
Table 2. Phase sensitivities of the fundamental mode of HC-1550-02 to internal pressure
with cladding holes of the fiber sealed/unsealed.
Cladding Phase sensitivity (rad/(Pa·m))
holes theoretical experimental
sealed 1.031 × 10−2 1.044 × 10−2
−2
unsealed 1.072 × 10 1.055 × 10−2
4. Conclusion
The effects of internal gas pressure on the transmission properties of hollow-core photonic
bandgap fibers were investigated experimentally and numerically. The transmission spectrum
was found hardly affected for pressure level up to 4 bar, while the phase sensitivity of the
fundamental mode to pressure was measured to be ~1.044 × 10−2 rad/(Pa·m). This phase
sensitivity is over two orders of magnitude higher than that to external pressure, showing that
a much shorter fiber is required to achieve the same target detection sensitivity. Alternatively,
for the same fiber length, more sensitive pressure sensors could be developed with the
internal pressurization configuration. It was found that the pressure-induced refractive index
change of air inside the hollow-core is the dominant factor that determines the phase
sensitivity, while the effects of pressure-induced fiber structural change and index change of
silica web are negligible for a pressure level up to several bar. This research would promise
several useful applications such as high sensitivity static and dynamic pressure measurement,
optical phase manipulation, and monitoring of pressure related biochemical processes.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
through Grant No. 61290313 and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University through
grant G-YK62.

Phase Sensitivity of Fundamental Mode of Hollow Core Photonic Bandgap Fiber To Internal Gas Pressure

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Phase sensitivity of fundamental mode of hollow-

core photonic bandgap fiber to internal

Abstract: The response of the commercial HC-1550-02 hollow-core

References and links

2.1 Preparation of HC-PBF sample

2.2 Effect of internal pressure on transmission spectrum

2.3 Phase sensitivity of the fundamental mode to internal pressure

3. Theoretical analysis and discussion

2π  dneff   dneff   dneff  

and for the silica cladding layer as

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