Hybrid hexa-octagonal photonic crystal fiber with excellent guiding properties for sensing and communication applications

Abstract A novel hybrid hexa-octagonal photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is designed by integrating a hexagonal arrangement of elliptical air holes in the core using soft glass and an octagonal lattice of circular air holes in the cladding. This study presents a comparative analysis of the fiber parameters, including confinement loss, non-linearity, effective area, birefringence, and chromatic dispersion, for two configurations: (i) hybrid hexa-octagonal PCF with a horizontal arrangement of air holes in the core, and (ii) hybrid hexa-octagonal PCF with a vertical arrangement of air holes in the core. Both configurations are examined by varying the pitch size, arrangement, and shape of air holes while maintaining identical design and operational features. Simulations are conducted using the full vector finite element method (FEM). Numerical results indicate that the confinement loss for vertically and horizontally arranged air holes is 1.098 × 10 −5 dB km −1 and 1.0743 × 10 −5 dB km −1 , respectively. High birefringence values of 0.07366 and 0.00434, and chromatic dispersion values of −3404.665 ps nm −1 km and −3391.6705 ps nm −1 km, respectively, are obtained at an operating wavelength of 1.55 µ m, making the fiber suitable for sensing and communication applications. The designed hexa-octagonal PCF has potential applications in the fiber optic sensing due to its assorted features.