Erick Reyes Vera

By Erick Reyes Vera, Juan Úsuga Restrepo, Margarita Varon and Pedro Torres

We propose and demonstrate the concept of transversally chirped microstructured optical fiber and its application for the development of new platforms for sensing and telecommunications devices. First, the feasibility of the structure is demonstrated through two different techniques of manufacture. Based on the proposed structure, a novel mode-converter device is numerically studied. It is found that the mode conversion between LP01 and LP11 modes can be continuously tuned by temperature changes from 25 to 75°C. And that, the coupling efficiency in the wavelength range between 1.2 μm and 1.7 μm is always higher than 65%. Consequently, the proposed mode converter can operate in the E + S + C + L + U bands. Finally, a similar structure was used to design a new sensing architecture, which consisting of a dual-core transversally chirped microstructured optical fiber for refractive index sensing of fluids. We show that by introducing a chirp in the hole size, the microstructured optical fiber can be a structure with decoupled cores, forming a Mach–Zehnder interferometer in which the analyte directly modulates the device transmittance by its differential influence on the effective refractive index of each core mode. We show that by filling all fiber holes with analyte, the sensing structure achieves high sensitivity (transmittance changes of 302.8 per RIU at 1.42) and has the potential for use over a wide range of analyte refractive index.

Part of the book: Selected Topics on Optical Fiber Technologies and Applications