Hollow Core Optical Fibers

Hollow Core
Optical Fibers
Edited by
Walter Belardi
Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Fibers
www.mdpi.com/journal/fibers
Hollow Core Optical Fbers
Hollow Core Optical Fbers
Special Issue Editor

Walter Belardi
MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade

Special Issue Editor
Walter Belardi
Université de Lille
France
Editorial Office
MDPI
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4052 Basel, Switzerland
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Contents
About the Special Issue Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Walter Belardi
Hollow-Core Optical Fibers
Reprinted from: Fibers 2019, 7, 50, doi:10.3390/fib7050050 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Benoı̂t Debord, Foued Amrani, Luca Vincetti, Frédéric Gérôme and Fetah Benabid
Hollow-Core Fiber Technology: The Rising of “Gas Photonics”
Igor A. Bufetov, Alexey F. Kosolapov, Andrey D. Pryamikov, Alexey V. Gladyshev,

Anton N. Kolyadin, Alexander A. Krylov, Yury P. Yatsenko and Alexander S. Biriukov
Revolver Hollow Core Optical Fibers
Alice L. S. Cruz, Cristiano M. B. Cordeiro and Marcos A. R. Franco

3D Printed Hollow-Core Terahertz Fibers
Laurent Provino
Effect of Nested Elements on Avoided Crossing between the Higher-Order Core Modes and the
Air-Capillary Modes in Hollow-Core Antiresonant Optical Fibers
Matthias Zeisberger, Alexander Hartung and Markus A. Schmidt

Understanding Dispersion of Revolver-Type Anti-Resonant Hollow Core Fibers
Chengli Wei, Curtis R. Menyuk and Jonathan Hu

Geometry of Chalcogenide Negative Curvature Fibers for CO2 Laser Transmission
Katsumasa Iwai, Hiroyuki Takaku, Mitsunobu Miyagi, Yi-Wei Shi and Yuji Matsuura
Fabrication of Shatter-Proof Metal Hollow-Core Optical Fibers for Endoscopic Mid-Infrared
Laser Applications
Hanna Izabela Stawska, Maciej Andrzej Popenda and Elżbieta Bereś-Pawlik

Combining Hollow Core Photonic Crystal Fibers with Multimode, Solid Core Fiber Couplers
through Arc Fusion Splicing for the Miniaturization of Nonlinear Spectroscopy Sensing Devices
Xiaosheng Huang, Ken-Tye Yong and Seongwoo Yoo

A Method to Process Hollow-Core Anti-Resonant Fibers into Fiber Filters
Sebastian Eilzer and Björn Wedel

Hollow Core Optical Fibers for Industrial Ultra Short Pulse Laser Beam Delivery Applications
v
About the Special Issue Editor
Walter Belardi holds a research excellence chair in photonics at the University of Lille, in France.
He obtained his PhD, on microstructured optical fibers, at the University of Southampton, United
Kingdom. He then worked, first in industry, as a scientific consultant, and, later, as a researcher at the
University of Bath (UK) and University of Southampton. His main research contributions are in the
design, fabrication and use of novel optical fiber technologies, with key achievements that include the
modelling and fabrication of novel hollow core fiber structures. Walter is an editorial board member
of Fibers and has contributed overall to more than 100 scientific works. He has been a project evaluator
for several research funding organisations and he has contributed to diverse personal and group
research grants.
vii
fibers
Editorial
Hollow-Core Optical Fibers
Walter Belardi
CNRS, UMR 8523–PhLAM–Physique des Lasers Atomes et Molécules, Université de Lille, F-59000 Lille, France;
walter.belardi@univ-lille.fr
Received: 15 May 2019; Accepted: 22 May 2019; Published: 24 May 2019
The possibility of guiding light in air has fascinated optical scientists and engineers since the
dawn of optical fiber technology [1]. However, a remarkable progress in this area has been achieved
“only” twenty years ago, when the first fabrication of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber capable
of delivering light over a length of few centimeters [2] gave rise to an increased interest in the field.
Then, first the 20 dB/km attenuation barrier was overcome [3] and, few years later, the lowest loss
(1.2 dB/km) hollow-core optical fiber (HC) was realized [4].
Since the beginning of this century, HCs have attracted the attention of a large worldwide research
community working on the design, fabrication and device implementation, entering almost any
specific application field of optics (from medicine [5] to security [6], telecommunication [7], industrial
processing [8], instrumentation [9], biology [10], and so on and so forth). In parallel with the increased
number of applications, still major advances are being made on the optimization of the hollow-core
fiber designs and on the study of its underlying guiding properties, as well as in the use of different
materials or fabrication techniques, which, in turn, are providing even more ways of exploitation of
this technology and new technical challenges.
This special issue of Fibers wanted to ride the wave of this renewed interest in the field of
hollow-core optical fibers by providing an overview of the recent progress in this field as well as an
updated and indicative sample of current research activities worldwide.
Thus, the issue includes three outstanding reviews by leading institutions in the field of hollow-core
optical fibers. The review Hollow-Core Fiber Technology: The Rising of “Gas Photonics” [11] by the University
of Limoges (France) and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy) moves from their first discovery
and development of the Inhibited-Coupling hollow-core optical fiber to its application to gas photonics.
It is an extremely rich, deep and detailed trip offered by some of the most renowned scientists in the field
that highlights their key achievements in both design and fabrication developments, and, in particular,
shows how this gave rise to the exploitation of gas/light interaction in an unprecedented way.
The review Revolver Hollow-Core Optical Fibers [12] by the Fiber Optics Research Center (FORC),
in Moscow, focuses on their specific simplified designs (HCs with only a single ring of tubular tubes in
the cladding area), first pioneered and developed in their institution. Most properties, applications and
fabrication approaches of this specific fiber type are addressed and discussed in all spectral domains.
The review is not limited to silica glass, but also covers their demonstration of chalcogenide hollow-core
optical fibers for the longer wavelength ranges.
The material and fabrication aspect is the object of the third review, 3D-Printed Hollow-Core
Terahertz Fibers [13] by Instituto Tecnologico de Aerenoautica, Instituto de estudos avançados and Universidade
Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), in Brazil. The realization and characterization of polymer-based
HCs, in combination with 3D-printing fabrication, approaches is widely discussed. The review shows
how the field of HCs is expanding also to the terahertz spectral regime and how it is starting to profit
of the opportunities offered by the 3D-printing techniques.
After this overview on the last generation of hollow-core optical fibers, this special issue includes
seven original contributions by scientists addressing current relevant issues involved in the design and
application aspects of HCs.
Fibers 2019, 7, 50; doi:10.3390/fib7050050 1 www.mdpi.com/journal/fibers

Fibers 2019, 7, 50
On the design aspect, the paper Effect of Nested Elements on Avoided Crossing Between the Higher-Order
Core Modes and the Air-Capillary Modes in Hollow-Core Antiresonant Optical Fibers [14], by the Research
Technology Organization of Photonics Bretagne (PERFOS), in Lannion (France), deals with the extremely
important problem of mono-modality in the most advanced forms of HCs. The accurate numerical
analysis made by the author provides an important insight in order to understand which HC geometry
to use and how to simplify the analysis of its properties.
In the same way, the original paper Understanding Dispersion of Revolver-Type Anti-Resonant
Hollow-Core Fiber [15] by the Leibnitz Institute of Photonic technology and the University of Jena, in Jena
(Germany), is about the full comprehension of the dispersion properties of anti-resonant HCs, which is
essential for applications involving high optical power and short pulse duration. Aside from providing
useful analytical approximations, the authors perform a series of numerical simulations showing how
the group velocity dispersion changes with the HC geometry.
Structure optimization is also the target of the last original contribution on fiber designs in this
special issue: Geometry of Chalcogenide Negative Curvature Fibers for CO2 Laser Transmission [16] by the
Baylor University and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, in Baltimore (USA). In this paper,
a large number of geometrical parameters are used in numerical simulations on HCs in chalcogenide
glasses, in order to achieve the best possible attenuation performances at the CO2 laser wavelength of
10.6 μm. This numerical work is of high importance in the field since anti-resonant HCs could be a
valid alternative to other types of specialty optical fibers for the mid-infrared spectral range.
For example, passing now to the original experimental contribution of this special issue,
the paper Fabrication of Shatter-Proof Metal Hollow-Core Optical Fibers for Endoscopic Mid-Infrared Laser
Applications [17] by the Sendai College, the Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University, the Tohoku University,
in Japan, and the Fudan University, in China, concerns the experimental demonstration of innovative
HCs for the 10.6 μm wavelength. Targeting medical applications of HCs, this paper addresses relevant
implementation issues of this technology by looking, in particular, not only at the fiber attenuation and
bending loss, but also at the characteristics of the material embedded inside the HC and at the ability
of the same HC in guiding both mid-infrared and visible light for its practical operation.
Practicability in the device implementation is also the object of the second original experimental
contribution to this issue. The paper Combining Hollow-core Photonic Crystal Fibers with Multimode, Solid
Core Fiber Couplers through Arc Fusion Splicing for the Miniaturization of Nonlinear Spectroscopy Sensing
Devices [18], by the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, in Wroclaw (Poland), deals with the
important problem of combining HCs and standard optical technology, in an effective and viable
way. The optimization of the splicing parameters, by simply using a conventional arc fusion splicer,
allows them to demonstrate adequate performances and the validity of their approach in a two-photon
fluorescence spectroscopy experiment.
On the other hand, a method to process HCs via a CO2 laser is used in the third original
experimental work of this issue. The paper A Method to Process Hollow-Core Anti-Resonant Fibers
into Fiber Filters [19], by the Nanyang Technological University, discusses how to modify the internal
geometrical characteristics of an anti-resonant HC in order to use it as a filter device. It shows how the
implemented methodology could also be employed in the dispersion control, a very relevant factor in
optical pulse propagation and manipulation.
The study of the characteristics of high-power pulses delivered through an HC is the thematic of
the last original experimental contribution to this special issue. The paper Hollow-core Optical Fibers
for Industrial Ultra Short Pulse Laser Beam Delivery Applications [20], by Photonic Tools GmbH, in Berlin,
shows relevant details on the implementation of a high-power laser-beam delivery device, in both the
picosecond and femtosecond pulse duration regime. The suitability of HCs for flexible and efficient
optical-power delivery was proved by the results when cutting different materials.
Besides providing a good balance between reviews (3 contributions), theoretical analysis
(3 contributions) and applications (4 contributions), this special issue of Fibers represents a reasonable
mix of the research activities from different geographical areas, with contributions from the European
2
Fibers 2019, 7, 50
Union (5 research institutions and 2 companies), Russia (1 institution), Brazil (3 institutions), United
States of America (2 institutions), Japan (2 institutions), China (1 institution) and Singapore (1 institution).
This shows the worldwide interest for a technology that is coming to better maturity and may largely
affect industrial, economical and societal changes in the future years.
Funding: This research received no external funding.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
1. Marcatili, E.; Schmeltzer, R. Hollow Metallic and Dielectric Waveguides for Long Distance Optical
Transmission and Lasers. Bell Syst. Tech. J. 1964, 43, 1783–1809. [CrossRef]
2. Cregan, R.F.; Mangan, B.J.; Knight, J.C.; Birks, T.A.; St. J. Russell, P. Single-Mode Photonic Band Gap
Guidance of Light in Air. Science 1999, 285, 1537–1539. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
3. Venkataraman, N.; Gallagher, M.T.; Smith, C.M.; Muller, D.; West, J.A.; Koch, K.W.; Fajardo, J.C. Low Loss
(13 dB/km) Air Core Photonic Band-Gap Fibre. In Proceedings of the ECOC 2002, Copenhagen, Denmark,
8–12 September 2002. PD1.1.
4. Roberts, P.J.; Couny, F.; Sabert, H.; Mangan, B.J.; Williams, D.P.; Farr, L.; Mason, M.W.; Tomlinson, A.;
Birks, T.A.; Knight, J.C.; et al. Ultimate low loss of hollow-core photonic crystal fibres. Opt. Express 2005, 13,
236–244. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
5. Lombardini, A.; Mytskaniuk, V.; Sivankutty, S.; Ravn Andresen, E.; Chen, X.; Wenger, J.; Fabert, M.;
Joly, N.; Louradour, F.; Kudlinski, A.; et al. High-resolution multimodal flexible coherent Raman endoscope.
Light Sci. Appl. 2018, 7, 10. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
6. Cruz, A.; Serrão, V.A.; Barbosa, C.L.; Franco, M.A.R.; Cordeiro, C.M.B.; Argyros, A.; Xiaoli, T. 3D Printed
Hollow Core Fiber with Negative Curvature for Terahertz Applications. J. Microw. Optoel. Electromagn. Appl.
2015, 14, 45–53.
7. Wang, X.; Ge, D.; Ding, W.; Wang, Y.Y.; Gao, S.; Zhang, X.; Sun, Y.; Li, J.; Chen, Z.; Wang, P. Hollow-core
conjoined-tube fiber for penalty-free data transmission under offset launch conditions. Opt. Lett. 2019, 44,
2145–2148. [CrossRef]
8. Michieletto, M.; Lyngsø, J.K.; Jakobsen, C.; Lægsgaard, J.; Bang, O.; Alkeskjold, T.T. Hollow-core fibers for
high power pulse delivery. Opt. Express 2016, 24, 7103–7119. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
9. Digonnet, M.J.F.; Chamoun, J.N. Recent developments in laser-driven and hollow-core fiber optic gyroscopes.
Proc. SPIE 2016, 9852, 985204.
10. Giovanardi, F.; Cucinotta, A.; Rozzi, A.; Corradini, R.; Benabid, F.; Rosa, L.; Vincetti, L. Hollow Core Inhibited
Coupling Fibers for Biological Optical Sensing. J. Light. Technol. 2019, 37, 2598–2604. [CrossRef]
11. Debord, B.; Amrani, F.; Vincetti, L.; Gérôme, F.; Benabid, F. Hollow-Core Fiber Technology: The Rising of
“Gas Photonics”. Fibers 2019, 7, 16. [CrossRef]
12. Bufetov, I.A.; Kosolapov, A.F.; Pryamikov, A.D.; Gladyshev, A.V.; Kolyadin, A.N.; Krylov, A.A.; Yatsenko, Y.P.;
Biriukov, A.S. Revolver Hollow Core Optical Fibers. Fibers 2018, 6, 39. [CrossRef]
13. Cruz, A.L.S.; Cordeiro, C.M.B.; Franco, M.A.R. 3D Printed Hollow-Core Terahertz Fibers. Fibers 2018, 6, 43.
[CrossRef]
14. Provino, L. Effect of Nested Elements on Avoided Crossing between the Higher-Order Core Modes and the
Air-Capillary Modes in Hollow-Core Antiresonant Optical Fibers. Fibers 2018, 6, 42. [CrossRef]
15. Zeisberger, M.; Hartung, A.; Schmidt, M.A. Understanding Dispersion of Revolver-Type Anti-Resonant
Hollow Core Fibers. Fibers 2018, 6, 68. [CrossRef]
16. Wei, C.; Menyuk, C.R.; Hu, J. Geometry of Chalcogenide Negative Curvature Fibers for CO2 Laser
Transmission. Fibers 2018, 6, 74. [CrossRef]
17. Iwai, K.; Takaku, H.; Miyagi, M.; Shi, Y.W.; Matsuura, Y. Fabrication of Shatter-Proof Metal Hollow-Core
Optical Fibers for Endoscopic Mid-Infrared Laser Applications. Fibers 2018, 6, 24. [CrossRef]
18. Stawska, H.I.; Popenda, M.A.; Bereś-Pawlik, E. Combining Hollow Core Photonic Crystal Fibers with
Multimode, Solid Core Fiber Couplers through Arc Fusion Splicing for the Miniaturization of Nonlinear
Spectroscopy Sensing Devices. Fibers 2018, 6, 77. [CrossRef]
3
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19. Huang, X.; Yong, K.T.; Yoo, S. A Method to Process Hollow-Core Anti-Resonant Fibers into Fiber Filters.
Fibers 2018, 6, 89. [CrossRef]
20. Eilzer, S.; Wedel, B. Hollow Core Optical Fibers for Industrial Ultra Short Pulse Laser Beam Delivery
Applications. Fibers 2018, 6, 80. [CrossRef]
© 2019 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
4
fibers
Review
Hollow-Core Fiber Technology: The Rising of
“Gas Photonics”
Benoît Debord 1, *, Foued Amrani 1 , Luca Vincetti 2 , Frédéric Gérôme 1 and Fetah Benabid 1
1 GPPMM Group, XLIM Research Institute, CNRS UMR 7252, University of Limoges, 87060 Limoges, France;
foued.amrani@xlim.fr (F.A.); gerome@xlim.fr (F.G.); f.benabid@xlim.fr (F.B.)
2 Department of Engineering “Enzo Ferrari”, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, I-41125 Modena, Italy;
luca.vincetti@unimore.it
* Correspondence: benoit.debord@xlim.fr; Tel.: +33-555-457-283
Received: 19 November 2018; Accepted: 18 January 2019; Published: 18 February 2019
Abstract: Since their inception, about 20 years ago, hollow-core photonic crystal fiber and its gas-filled
form are now establishing themselves both as a platform in advancing our knowledge on how light
is confined and guided in microstructured dielectric optical waveguides, and a remarkable enabler
in a large and diverse range of fields. The latter spans from nonlinear and coherent optics, atom
optics and laser metrology, quantum information to high optical field physics and plasma physics.
Here, we give a historical account of the major seminal works, we review the physics principles
underlying the different optical guidance mechanisms that have emerged and how they have been
used as design tools to set the current state-of-the-art in the transmission performance of such fibers.
In a second part of this review, we give a nonexhaustive, yet representative, list of the different
applications where gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber played a transformative role, and
how the achieved results are leading to the emergence of a new field, which could be coined “Gas
photonics”. We particularly stress on the synergetic interplay between glass, gas, and light in founding
this new fiber science and technology.
Keywords: hollow-core photonic crystal fiber; gas photonics
1. Introduction
In the last twenty years, photonics has witnessed the advent of a new type of optical fibers named
hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HCPCF) [1], and has led to a huge progress in understanding
the underlying physics of the guidance mechanisms, in its technology and in their applications.
Indeed, HCPCF has been a unique platform for the demonstration of photonic bandgap guidance,
the development of new conceptual tools such as “photonic tight binding” model to explain how
these photonic bandgaps are formed in microstructured optical fibers [2], or the inception of
“Inhibited Coupling” guidance, which is the fiber–photonic analog of bound state in continuum [3,4].
Furthermore, the motivation of fabricating HCPCF with exquisite control of its nanometric glass
features has led to new fabrication techniques [5]. Finally, the ability to functionalize these fibers
by introducing a fluid in its hollow-core to form photonic microcells (PMC) [6] proved to be a
transformative and differentiating force in various fields [7].
In the course of the HCPCF continuing development process, a new landscape of research
and technology, whose scope lies at the frontier of several fields, emerged, and is continuing to
develop. These fields stand out by their variety and large range as they span from photonics,
nonlinear and ultrafast optics, plasma physics, high optical field physics, atom and molecular
optics, cold atom, lasers, telecommunications, and frequency metrology to micromachining and
surgery. Despite this diversity and complexity, the landscape can be broken down into two main
poles, which underpin all the aforementioned fields. The first one entails the research activities

Fibers 2019, 7, 16
on the science and technology of HCPCF. It comprises the design and the fabrication processes of
HCPCF and their derivative components, and which has witnessed not only a huge improvement
in the fiber fabrication technology, but the development of novel concepts in the optical guidance
mechanisms that is reshaping the field of guided optics. The second pole entails the HCPCF-based
applications. Here, it was shown in a number of demonstrations that the combination of a HCPCF,
a filling gas phase medium, and a judiciously chosen electromagnetic excitation are sufficient to
provide a versatile and powerful tool to make various photonic components. These range from
frequency convertors [8–11], supercontinuum generators [12,13], frequency standard cells [6,14], pulse
compressors [15–17], high-power and high energy laser beam delivery cables [17], lasers [18–20] to
quantum sensors, sources and memories [21–23], and even Raman gas spectroscopy for chemistry [24].
Remarkably, despite the variety of the aforementioned demonstrations, this landscape is chiefly
built upon only three elements, which are gas, glass, and light. In a unique synergetic relationship,
each one of these three elements plays a central role in controlling and structuring one of the two
other elements. Figure 1a illustrates this synergetic “interfeeding” cycle between gas, glass, and light.
Three representative examples on how to structure either of them are as follows. (i) Structuring glass
with gas—In the process of HCPCF fabrication, one can shape the cladding glass structure by simply
revisiting the glass blowing technique [5]. Here, the fiber cladding and core holes are pressurized
with an inert gas (see Figure 1a) to achieve the desired fiber geometry whose features include glass
web with nanometer scaled thickness and shapes as complex as the hypocycloidal core-contour
(also called negative curvature), which strongly impacted the transmission performance in inhibited
coupling guiding HCPCF (IC-HCPCF) [25,26]. (ii) Structuring light with glass—In turn, the HCPCF
cladding nanostructured glass results in structuring the modal spectrum of the cladding modes so
as to exhibit in the effective index and frequency space (i.e., ne f f − ω space) specific regions with
no propagating modes (i.e., photonic bandgap) or with a continuum of modes whose transverse
profile and spatial localization render their coupling to some core guided modes close-to-forbidden
(i.e., inhibited coupling) (see Figure 1b). This structured modal spectrum allows ultralow loss optical
guidance in hollow-core defects, and where the spatial optical profile of the guided mode can reach in
IC-HCPCF an extremely low overlap with the cladding that led to the demonstration of ultrashort
pulse (USP) energy handling up to millijoule energy level, and with a potential to withstand up to a
joule level USP. It is noteworthy that this level of energy handling by the HCPCF implies the ability
of engraving glass, which is the constitutive material of the fiber (see Figure 1e). (iii) Structuring gas
with light—Finally, demonstrations have shown that light can also be used to structure the gas inside
HCPCF. Among these, we count the generation of ionized gas plasma column generation in a HCPCF
with microwave nonintrusive excitation [27] (see Figure 1d), or the nanostructuring of Raman gas [28]
(see Figure 1c) or ultracold atoms [29] with particular optical excitation.
6
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 1. Synergetic cycle between gas, glass, and light in HCPCF science and technology
and HCPCF-based applications. Representative examples of HCPCF related research activities.
(a) Schematic of gas pressurization and evacuation during HCPCF drawing process. (b) Modal
spectrum of an infinite cladding made with tubular lattice. Inset: unit cell of a tubular lattice (reprinted
with permission from Reference [30], OSA, 2017). (c) Illustration of nanolayer of hydrogen molecules
(Raman-active gas) formed by special stimulated Raman scattering configuration [28]. (d) Fluorescence
from a plasma core photonic crystal fiber (reprinted with permission from Reference [27], OSA,
2013). (e) Engraving of glass sheet with HCPCF output laser (reprinted with permission from
Reference [31], OSA, 2014). (f) Over five octave Raman comb generated and transmitted through
hydrogen-filled-HCPCF (reprinted with permission from Reference [10], OSA, 2015).
What is noteworthy in some of these applications mentioned above is the ability of HCPCF to
microconfine light and gases in extreme regimes. For example, laser intensity levels of PW/cm2 and
laser fluence that is several orders of magnitude larger than the silica laser damage threshold [17] are
now generated and guided in HCPCF. The largest fiber transmission window is demonstrated via the
generation of an optical Raman comb as wide as more than five octaves in hydrogen-filled HCPCF [10]
(see Figure 1f), whilst the generation and guidance of high energy single-cycle compression was
achieved thanks to HCPCF specific dispersion profile [16]. Conversely, HCPCF has proved to harbor
gas media well beyond their common gas phase state such as the generation and microconfinement
of ionized gas exhibiting high-power and electron densities combined with temperatures as high as
1000 K without damage to the structural integrity of the fiber [27], or the microconfinement of ultracold
atoms with no collision with the micrometric core inner-wall. Finally, structuring molecular gas into
an array of nanolayers has recently been demonstrated with hydrogen-filled HCPCF to create a new
Lamb-Dicke-stimulated Raman scattering [28].
7
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
In this review, we present the major events that led to the development of HCPCF such as the key
and seminal results and concepts. By highlighting the synergetic interplay between gas, glass, and
light, we describe the contour of a research field landscape, which could be coined as “Gas Photonics”,
that is currently emerging thanks to the enabling power of HCPCF technology. We start by quickly
reviewing the PCF fabrication process and the different microstructured fibers made in this way, and
underlining the role of gas in successfully achieving intricate glass microstructures. Secondly, we show
how the resulted cladding geometrical structure is exploited to engineer cladding modal spectrum,
and thus to achieve the desired fiber guidance properties. In a subsequent section, we present the
modal properties of the cladding defect (i.e., fiber core), by highlighting the salient features of the
core fundamental mode such as its dispersion, its overlap with the silica, and how these properties
differ between PBG-guiding HCPCF and IC-guiding HCPCF. The following sections of the review are
dedicated to the applications, where we provide a nonexhaustive but illustrative list of the different
applications that have been demonstrated in the last two decades.
2. Historical Overview of HCPCF

Photonic crystal fibers (PCF) [1]—optical fibers whose cladding is microstructured—were first
reported in late 90s and are fabricated using an original process called “stack-and-draw” technique [32].
The versatility of this process and its ability to tailor the cladding modal spectrum by judiciously
designing the cladding structure offered a platform to develop optical fibers with various core and
claddings designs, and enabled novel optical guidance mechanisms and fibers with unprecedented
linear and nonlinear properties. In turn, PCF has proved to be an excellent photonic component for
multiple applications in varied fields such as supercontinuum generation in nonlinear optics, gas-based
optics, and nonlinear optics [7].
Figure 2 illustrates, in a tree diagram, the PCF family and its diversity from the standpoint
of the fiber structural designs, constitutive materials or the physics underlying their guidance
mechanisms. If we had to classify these fibers by their structural architecture, we can identify two main
families—solid-core and hollow-core fibers—each of them can be divided in several ways. For example,
they can be classified by one of the three guidance mechanisms, which are (i) Modified Step Index
(MSI), (ii) Photonic Bandgap (PBG), and (iii) Inhibited Coupling (IC). The fibers can also be categorized
via their cladding geometry. The latter outstands with the impressive variety that can be found in
each guidance mechanism, and the optical properties that can address. Among these, we can highlight
the endlessly single-mode (ESM) fiber [33], which enables optical guidance in a single mode fashion
regardless of the wavelength. This in turn led to the large mode area (LMA) single mode fibers [34],
and subsequently to high-power fiber lasers [35]. The PCF tree diagram also shows other designs
that were developed such as enhanced birefringence (Hi-Bi) fibers [36], dispersion compensation PCF
(Disp-Comp) [37], all-solid PBG-guiding PCF [38], solid-core IC-guiding PCF [39], and hybrid guidance
PCF [40] to mention a few. Finally, we can record PCF via their constitutive materials. Here, whilst
silica remains the dominant material used, a lot of effort is currently undertaken to use alternative
materials such as soft glass or chalcogenides [41,42] mainly driven by either further enhancing optical
nonlinearities in PCF or extending their transmission well beyond the silica transparency window.
8
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 2. Photonic crystal fibers family tree diagram (top). Micrographs of HCPCF-based on PBG
guidance and IC guidance.
Within this family, PCFs with a hollow-core defect [1] stand out from the rest of the PCFs
because their optical guidance cannot rely on the conventional total internal reflection (TIR). As such,
HCPCF was the fiber design of choice to explore novel guidance mechanisms such as PBG or IC,
and whose main principles stem no longer from guided optics but from quantum mechanics or
solid-state physics. The notion of PBG was first proposed by John [43] and Yablonovitch in 1987 [44,45].
This work represents a paradigm shift in optics, which led to a powerful conceptual transfer from
quantum mechanics and solid-state physics to optics. Particularly, light propagation, confinement,
and generation in dielectric microstructures, coined photonic crystals, is now casted as an eigenvector
problem in a similar manner to solving Schrodinger equation and reconstructing the electronic energy
diagram of a crystal.
In 1995, Philip St. J. Russell and coworkers extended this approach to optical fiber [32]. Here, the
authors show for the first time the possibility for a fiber cladding structure made of silica and air holes
to exhibit regions of the ne f f − ω -space that are void of any propagating modes (i.e., PBG) and that
extend below the air-line. This means that air guidance is possible within the PBG (ne f f − ω ) region
because of the absence of cladding modes to which a core-guided mode could couple to.
The proof of principle of fabricating a HCPCF was first reported by Cregan et al. in 1999 [1].
HCPCFs with sufficiently low loss were reported in 2002 [46,47]. The first one consisted of Kagome
lattice HCPCF with ~1 dB/m, reported by Benabid et al. [46]. The second one, consisted with
unambiguously PBG-guiding HCPCF by Corning, reported only few months later than reference [46]
in a post-deadline paper in ECOC [47]. The fiber exhibited a transmission loss figure of 13 dB/km at
1500 nm and a cladding structure with then the largest air-filling fraction. This was a strong evidence
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
of the concept of out-plane PBG proposed by P. St. J. Russell [48]. To date, the lowest transmission loss
recorded for HCPCF is set at 1.2 dB/km at 1620 nm reported by Roberts et al. [49]. It is noteworthy
that the Kagome lattice HCPCF, which outstands with a broadband guidance from Ultraviolet (UV) to
Infrared (IR), does not guide via PBG despite exhibiting the lowest loss when it was first reported. Also,
this loss figure was lower than predicted by Fresnel reflection in a capillary [50] or by antiresonant
reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) [51] to explain how light is guided in such a fiber. It was
shown later that the fiber guides thanks to the strong coupling inhibition between core and cladding
modes, leading to the term of IC guidance mechanism. Such a cohabitation between a core-guided
mode (even though leaky) and cladding mode continuum, which has raised a lot of questions within
the fiber optics community, stem from quantum mechanics. In 1929, Von Neumann and Wigner
theoretically demonstrated that electronic bound states with positive energy can exist for a particular
potential profile [3], thus leading to the notion of bound state in a continuum (BIC) [52]. Consequently,
IC guidance mechanism, proposed by Benabid and coworkers in 2007 [4], is the fiber photonics
analog of Von Neumann and Wigner BIC. Though it is important to stress that in Kagome HCPCF,
the core-guided modes are not strictly “bound”; consequently, the guided modes of IC-HCPCF are
referred as quasi-BIC (QBIC). In a following section below, we detail the nature of interaction between
a core and cladding modes using the IC model. The latter proved to be a very powerful design tool,
as it led to the advent of IC-HCPCF with hypocycloidal core-contour [25,26], also renamed negative
curvature fiber [53,54]. This in turn, led to a renewed interest in HCPCF fabrication and design, which
is illustrated by the proposal of cladding structures having hypocycloid core-contour, such as the
tubular lattice cladding [53,55] and their modified versions [56–60]. This renewal in IC-HCPCF is also
illustrated by the continuous and dramatically rapid decrease in their transmission loss. The progress is
such that the loss reduction in IC-HCPCF has been decreasing at an average rate per year of 20 dB/km
since 2011, and that today IC-guiding HCPCF, which previous typical loss figure was in the range of
0.5 to 1 dB/m, outperforms PBG-guiding HCPCF in wavelengths shorter than 1500 nm. Indeed, the
loss figure has dropped from ~180 dB/km in the first negative curvature HCPCF reported in 2010
and 2011 [25,26], to 40 dB/km at 1550 nm in 2012 [61], 70 dB/km at ~780 nm [62], and 17 dB/km at
~1 μm [63] in 2013, and 70 dB/km in a 500 to 600 nm wavelength range [64] in 2014. Today’s state
of the art sets the loss figures in IC-HCPCF at below the 10 dB/km limit. For example, a reported
hypocycloid core-contour Kagome HCPCF has been shown to have a loss as low as 8.5 dB/km at
approximately 1 μm recently [65], and a tubular HCPCF to exhibit 7.7 dB/km at around 750 nm [30],
and more recently, a modified tubular HCPCF is reported to show 2 dB/km transmission loss at the
vicinity of 1500 nm [58]. Furthermore, the work in References [30,65] shows that the short wavelength
(<1 μm) attenuation in these IC-HCPCF is limited by surface scattering loss (SSL) due to the capillary
wave induced surface roughness, while for longer wavelength, improving the transmission will be
determined by the cladding design. The details of this will be given in the next section.
In parallel with this continuous progress in the design and fabrication of HCPCF, this type of
fiber has been the building block in a number of gas-laser related applications [7]. Among the salient
features of these demonstrations is the generation of optical nonlinear effects with ultralow light level
or the excitation with high signal-to-noise ratio of extremely weak spectroscopic signatures thanks
to the fiber long interaction length and the small modal areas. Conversely, IC-HCPCF proved to
handle unprecedentedly high level of laser pulse energy [31]. A relatively detailed account of these
applications is given in a following section below.
3. HCPCF Fabrication Process: Using Gas to Nano- and Microstructure Glass

Fabricating microstructured optical fiber can be traced back to 1974 when Corning proposed an
extrusion method to develop thin honeycomb structure thanks to extrudable material pushed through
specific dies [66]. This extrusion technique was initially used during the very first attempts in making
PCF. However, its impact on the PCF development was very weak because of the difficulty of the
process, especially with hard materials such as silica and the surface roughness that it imprints on the
10
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
extruded material. On the other hand, the explosive development of PCF was driven by then a new
fabrication process coined “stack-and-draw” [67]. This technique has very quickly become widespread
and most commonly used in the fabrication of microstructured optical fibers. It consists of a sequence
of drawing rods or capillaries with typically a millimeter diameter and a meter in length and stacking
them together by hand to form a “stack”. The latter can be constructed into several forms depending
on the final fiber design. Once the stack is built, it is drawn into preform canes, which are subsequently
drawn into fibers. Figure 3a illustrates this sequence of stack and draw. One can readily notice the
versatility and simplicity of this technique, which were the enabling factors in the development of the
myriad of PCF designs that the scientific community gets to distinguish. Indeed, by simply judiciously
stacking tubes or rods one can form different fiber microstructured architecture, and this hold for
any material.
Figure 3. (a) Schematic of the HCPCF fabrication process highlighting; (b) the structuration of glass
with gas.
Similarly, HCPCF, which is the topic of this review, are fabricated using stack-and-draw technique.
However, because of the small thickness of the glass web that forms either the stack, the preform or
the fiber, the stress on the material, which is induced via surface tension and the viscoelastic effect is
too strong to keep the physical integrity of the microstructure during the draw. In order to prevent
the fiber structure from collapsing via surface tension or to give some of its section a desired shape,
gas pressurization in the different transversal segments of the cane is introduced. Typically, three gas
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
control channels are used to independently pressurize the core, the cladding holes, and the cane–jacket
gap, as shown in Figure 3b. This pressurization technique was first introduced during the original
fabrication of Kagome HCPCF [5], and becomes since very common in HCPCF fabrication. With a
careful pressure control, fiber-cladding lattice made with tens of nanometer glass struts are now
readily fabricated. An example of the power of this technique is the successful draw of HCPCF with a
hypocycloidal core-contour shape that led to the advent of ultralow loss IC-HCPCF. In conclusion, we
can see how gas is used to nano- and microstructure the fiber glass, which in turn is crucial in how to
confine and guide light as described below.
4. HCPCF Guidance Mechanisms: Micro-Structuring the Glass to Structure the Light
4.1. Introduction
4.1.1. Historical Account

HCPCF proved to be an excellent platform to investigate “exotic” guidance mechanisms and
explore the predictive power of the “photonic crystal” approach that stemmed from the seminal
works of John [43] and Yablonovitch [44]. This approach treats the problem of guiding, trapping,
and generating light in dielectric microstructures—also called photonic bandgap materials—photonic
bandgap structures, or photonic crystals, in exactly the same manner as that used in solid-state physics
to derive the electronic energy band structure in a solid [68]. In solid-state physics, this is achieved by
casting the time-independent Schrodinger equation as an eigenvalue equation. The resolved states of
the equation map the energy–momentum space to give the range of energies that an electron within
the solid may have (i.e., allowed bands) or may not have (i.e., band gaps). Similarly, in photonics, and
following John and Yablonovitch, the frequency–wavevector space is mapped to identify the photonic
states of a photonic crystal by casting Maxwell equation as an eigenvalue problem. Consequently,
notions that were so far limited to quantum mechanics and condensed matter such as bandgap,
Bloch states, density of state become critical conceptual components in designing and investigating
dielectric microstructures.
Within this context, the manner on how to design PCF (especially HCPCF) departs from the
conventional approach in fiber optics [69]. Akin to semiconductor and doped crystals, a PCF is treated
under the framework of photonic crystal physics as a waveguiding 2D “crystal” whose order or
symmetry is broken by introducing an optical guiding defect within its extended spatial structure.
In other words, a PCF is a cladding photonic crystal structure to which a core defect with different
geometrical shape or index than the unit cell of the cladding is introduced. The pertinence of the
index and geometry profiles of the cladding and core is better assessed through the examination of
the cladding modal spectrum. When the cladding is considered to be infinite and periodic, which is
often done for calculation convenience so as to apply the Bloch theorem, the modal spectrum is simply
→
the density of photonic states (DOPS) in the frequency–wavevector space (ω, k ). Furthermore, in
PCF, this modal spectrum involves only the propagating modes along the uniform direction of the 2D
photonic structure (i.e., the fiber axis, which we refer as z-direction), which means the modes whose
electric field amplitude is of the form E ∝ eiβz . Alternatively, the mapped frequency–wavevector space
→
to derive the cladding modal spectrum is a subspace of (ω, k ) Hilbert space, namely (ω, β), where β is
→
the z-direction component of k , termed propagation constant. The modal spectrum
takes the form of a
diagram showing the density of the cladding modes in (ω, β) or ω, ne f f space. Here, ne f f , called
effective index of the mode, is given by β = neff .k. Similar to solid band-structure, the resulted DOPS

of the cladding exhibits ω, ne f f regions that are populated with photonic states, or propagating

modes, and other ω, ne f f regions that are void from any mode (i.e., PBG). The possibility of optical
guidance in an introduced core defect within the cladding implies requirements on the core index and
shape dictated by the type of guidance mechanism one is aiming for.
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
There are two strategies to guide light in thecore. The

first one relies on choosing a core index and
geometry so at least some of its supported mode ω, ne f f lie in the cladding PBG range. Consequently,
the core-mode cannot leak out because there is no cladding mode to couple to. This is the design
strategy for PBG-guiding HCPCF. The second one relies on engineering a core and a cladding so the
cladding modal spectrum is populated with modes which have very little spatial overlap and/or
symmetry matching. Here, the core mode remains in the core because its coupling to the cladding
modes is suppressed.
We conclude this section by adding the following comments on the terminology of “crystal” in
the PCF field. First, it is noteworthy that the modal spectrum structure
of a dielectric microstructure,

meaning the existence of allowed and forbidden bands in the ω, ne f f space does not necessarily
require a periodic material. In fact, the periodicity of a photonic structure is neither a necessary
condition nor a defining feature for the existence of PBG [30,68]. The periodicity requirement is a
mere mathematical convenience for applying the Bloch theorem [7]. This point draws its parallel from
solid-state physics and crystallography, where amorphous materials can exhibit electronic bandgap,
and a diffraction pattern can be produced from a solid with no crystallographic symmetry [70].
The latter surprising feature was discovered by D. Shechtmann and earned him the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry in 2011 [70]. Consequently, and in addition to historical reasons, we apply the term of
photonic crystal fiber (PCF) to any optical fiber whose cladding is microstructured and exhibits at least
a short-range order.
4.1.2. Total Internal Reflection, Photonic Band Gap, and Inhibited Coupling
Before detailing, in the sections below, how PCF cladding modal spectra could be structured, we
first give a simple and pictorial account on how the cladding modal structure affects optical guidance
in fibers using the approach described above, and which is summarized in Figure 4. The figure shows
schematically, and for a fixed frequency, the modal content of the cladding and of the core defect of
the three types of optical fiber we can distinguish today. These fibers are (i) the well-known Total
Internal Reflection (TIR), (ii) Photonic Band Gap (PBG), and (iii) Inhibited Coupling (IC). Using the
solid-state physics approach, we consider the cladding to be infinite, or at least with a size much larger
than any operating wavelength, whilst the core is considered to have micrometer scale size. The modal
content is illustrated by colored regions on the ne f f -axis. The cladding modes are presented as the
orange-color-filled rectangle on lhs of the ne f f -axis; the core modes are schematically shown by the
intensity profiles on the rhs of the ne f f -axis. Finally, the material indices that are involved in the fiber
structure are represented with dashed horizontal lines.
In the case of TIR (Figure 4a), where the cladding is a dielectric with uniform index n g , the modal
content is represented by a continuum of modes whose effective indices are necessarily ne f f < n g .
Hence, the cladding is void from any propagating modes for ne f f > n g (region labeled “gap” in the
figure). In parallel, the introduction of a core defect with higher material index ndg , shows discrete
guided core-modes in the effective index range of n g < ne f f < ndg . These TIR guided modes are thus
confined within the core because the cladding is void from any possible modes at their effective indices.
Consequently, from this new standpoint, TIR guidance is simply one form of a PBG guidance, which is
achieved by having a defect material with higher index than that of the cladding.
The requirement of higher index for the core material to have PBG can be lifted with
microstructured cladding. Figure 4b illustrates this for the case of a PBG-HCPCF. Unlike with a
uniform index cladding, the cladding modal content now shows a more structured pattern with bands
corresponding to cladding mode bands (orange-color-filled rectangles) and gaps corresponding to
effective index band with no possible cladding modes (white-color-filled rectangles). The latter can
range even for ne f f < n air = 1, allowing thus optical guidance in core defects that are hollow or
filled with gases. The physical principles on how to engineer these “low index” gaps is detailed in a
section below.
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 4. Modal content representation of the three different optical guiding fibers: (a) Total Internal
Reflection (TIR); (b) Photonic Band Gap (PBG); and (c) Inhibited Coupling (IC) guiding fibers.
Finally, Figure 4c illustrates another type of guidance where neither a higher index core material
nor
cladding
PBG is required. Indeed, core modes and cladding continuum can coexist with the same
ω, ne f f without strongly hybridizing. Such a situation of having two modes with the same effective
index does not violate the exclusion principle. In this case, indeed modes of heterogeneous structure
with the same ne f f does not necessary mean having the same wavevector. The guidance mechanism,
akin to BIC or QBIC, is called IC and was introduced in 2007 [4] to explain the Kagome HCPCF optical
properties. According to this model the field of the core mode | ϕcore and the cladding mode | ϕclad is
strongly reduced (i.e., ϕclad |Δn2 | ϕcore −→ 0 , with Δn being a transverse index profile function). This
can be done by either having little spatial intersection between the fields of | ϕclad and | ϕcore photonic
states or by having a strong mismatch in their respective transverse spatial-phase. The details on how
ϕclad |Δn2 | ϕcore is reduced, is given below.
The above pictorial explanation highlights the crucial importance of the cladding modal spectrum
in dictating the nature of a fiber guidance and its performance. Figure 5 shows three representative
and most reported HCPCF cladding lattices and their associated modal spectra, or DOPS. The DOPS
diagram is achieved by numerically solving Maxwell equations for infinite, periodic, and defect-free
cladding, and displays the DOPS in the effective index and frequency space. The frequency is often
represented by some normalized frequency such as kΛ, with k being the amplitude of the wave vector,
and Λ is the pitch of the dielectric photonic structure. The structure is defined by its unit cell shown in
the inset of each of the three DOPS diagrams. Also, the effective index range was mapped near the
air-line (i.e., ne f f ≈ 1) as we are interested in fibers that guide in air or diluted materials.
The first DOPS diagram (Figure 5a) is that of a triangular and packed arrangement of nearly
hexagonally-shaped air holes with an air-filling fraction of ~93% [7]. This cladding lattice cladding is
that of the most common PBG-guiding HCPCF. The PBG region corresponding to DOPS = 0, is shown
in white. We note that for ne f f slightly below 1, the PBG spans from kΛ ≈ 14.5 to kΛ ≈ 18, which
gives a transmission window of 330 nm centered at 1550 nm. In the section below, using the photonic
analog of tight binding model [2], we review how PBG and cladding bands are formed in PBG-guiding
HCPCF, and how they are related to the glass geometrical features. We particularly stress the role of the
enlarged glass apices in the existence of PBG, and how their relative size can be optimized to increase
the PBG bandwidth or to open-up higher order PBG. We then finish the section on PBG-guiding fibers
14
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
by presenting properties of cladding lattice modes for high-normalized frequency range that relevant
to IC-guiding HCPCF.
Figure 5. Representative DOPS of (a) PBG (reprinted with permission from Reference [7], Francis &
Taylor, 2011), (b) IC Kagome (reprinted with permission from Reference [7], Francis & Taylor, 2011), and
(c) IC Single Ring Tubular Lattice HCPCF (reprinted with permission from Reference [30], OSA, 2017).
Figure 5b,c shows the DOPS diagrams for Kagome and tubular cladding lattice, respectively.
The Kagome lattice can be represented as an array of tessellated David’s stars, and the tubular lattice as
an array of isolated glass tubes. Several salient features can be drawn when compared to the previous
one. First, in both modal spectra the DOPS does not reach the zero value. In other word, both photonic
structures do not exhibit a PBG. Second, the normalized frequency range is much high than the case
of the PBG HCPCF, that is why it is sometimes coined a large pitch regime [71]. In fact, we will see
that in this regime, the pitch has secondary impact on the lattice modal spectrum. This is why the
normalized frequency in Figure 5c, is represented by the “pitch-free” quantity F = (2t/λ) n2g − 1
rather than the most common kΛ. In the section below, and similarly with the PBG-guiding HCPCF,
we will be using notions from solid-state physics to describe the IC guidance. This time, the driving
concept in explaining IC optical guidance is BIC. We chiefly use it to draw physical rules to achieve a
situation where modes with the same ne f f can “coexist without interaction” in a microstructured fiber.
In turn, we use these rules to design cladding lattice geometry and defect core-contour in such a way
the interaction between the cladding mode and the hollow-core mode is strongly suppressed despite
having the same or comparable effective index. We particularly emphasize on the importance of the
absence of enlarged glass nodes, which is in opposite requirement compared to the PBG HCPCF, and
the benefit of having a cladding with a thin, “smooth” elongated glass membranes. Finally, we will see
the advantage of working in the large pitch regime to an enhance the IC guidance.
4.2. Photonic Bandgap HCPCF: How to Engineer Photonic-Bandgaps below the Cladding Material
Lowest Index
4.2.1. Photonic Tight Binding Model

The modal spectrum of the fiber cladding can be rigorously derived using solid-state physics
concepts such as Bloch theorem and solving numerically the Maxwell equation. This, however, requires
heavy numerical calculation and does not necessarily provide a direct physical insight on how this
modal spectrum is formed or evolves. In parallel, the more intuitive and highly predicting model of
the tight binding model (TBM) have been successfully applied to HCPCF by Benabid and coworkers
in 2007 [2], and coined Photonic Tight Binding model (P-TBM), to explain how the cladding allowed
bands and band gaps are formed within a PBG-guiding HCPCF. They found that the cladding bands
in the modal spectrum of the PBG-HCPCF (shown in Figure 5a) are comprised with Bloch modes
15
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
supported by the glass apices and struts that form the hexagonal shape of the unit cell, along with the
modes which are supported by the air holes. Below, we review the basics of the tight binding model
and how this is applied to microstructured fibers.
In solid-state physics, according to TBM the bands in the energy diagram of a crystal or solid
result from the superposition of electronic state wavefunctions of the isolated atoms that form the
solid. In this description the relationship between the solid physical structure in the real space and its
energy structure in the Hilbert space is straightforward and is illustrated schematically in Figure 6a,b
for the case of 1D crystal of identical atoms. We see that for a large number of atoms N, if the pitch
Λ of the lattice is sufficiently large, the energy states of the crystal is reduced to discrete states of
the isolated constitutive atom, | j, each state being N-degenerate. As Λ decreases, the atoms get
closer and the wavefunctions of their energy states start to overlap. Consequently, the N-degenerate
energy state splits by virtue of the exclusion principle, and creates a band of N-distinct extended states
(i.e., Bloch states). The width of the band increases with decreasing Λ. Furthermore, the start of band
formation and its width strongly depend on the state wavefunction of an individual atom of the set.
The stronger the wavefunctions are confined (or bound), the closer the atoms must be to each other
for sufficient overlap. The net result is an energy structure exhibiting allowed band separated by gap,
i.e., bandgap. It is noteworthy that bandgaps result not only from the intrinsic separation between two
allowed bands, but they can result from anticrossing between overlapping bands. This occur when
the wavefunctions of the two bands exhibit strong symmetry matching. Hence they cannot occur in
the presently considered monoatomic 1D crystal, because the atom states are orthogonal, and thus
the bands here overlap without anticrossing (Figure 6b). However, for the case of a crystal molecule
with different atoms, it is possible to observe anticrossing of overlapping band if the later results from
two different atoms and exhibiting strong symmetry matching. This picture can be applied to guided
photonics where the electronic state in an atomic site is replaced by the guided mode in a photonic site.
The latter represented by a dielectric with higher refractive index, i.e., the waveguiding component of
the structure. The electronic state energy is replaced by the effective index of the guided mode. Finally,
the energy diagram to map the Hilbert space of the crystal is replaced
by the dispersion diagram of the

different modes supported by the photonic structure in the ω, ne f f space. Figure 6c,d reproduces
the schematic picture shown in Figure 6a,b for the case of an array of N glass rods. The evolution of
the dispersion with the pitch, plotted in function of normalized frequency kΛ, follows the same trend
as for the energy state of a crystal, evolving from a N-degenerate dispersion line of a single rod into a
band of propagating modes.
Figure 7 shows the above picture by considering an approximate and analytical model of the
dispersion of a silica rod array suspended in air [7]. For the case of a single rod (see Figure 7a), we can
retrieve the dispersion of the commonly known fiber modes (in the figure we limit to only LP01 and
LP11 for demonstration purpose). When a much larger number of equally spaced rods is considered,
the dispersion curve shows a band structure for the case of low kΛ or sufficiently closed rods (small
pitch regime). The width of these allowed bands narrow down with increasing kΛ to the extent of
forming a single dispersion line when kΛ is above a certain critical value (large pitch regime). The
formation of these bands in an extended physical photonic structure, such the considered rod array,
implies the possibility of light PBG guidance in a defect within the structure if its index and geometry
is judiciously chosen. Whilst this P-TBM toy model does not consider the modes below the lowest
material index (i.e., n = 1), we can still draw several points from the formed modal spectrum of the
1D rod array, and whose importance becomes apparent in the following sections. First, for small kΛ
values, which we call the small pitch regime, the allowed bands strongly vary with the pitch. Hence,
the resulted PBG transmission window edges of a guiding defect will depend on the pitch. This
property is used to tune the transmission window spectral range of PBG-HCPCF by simply scaling
accordingly the pitch. On the other hand, for sufficiently large kΛ values, the bands are very narrow,
and even reduced to a single dispersion lines. Under this large pitch regime, because the bands vary
little with kΛ, a guiding defect will exhibit PBG transmission windows whose edge spectral location
16
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
depends little with the pitch. Secondly, in the small pitch regime, the bands are formed by extended
and spatially overlapping Bloch modes, whilst in the high pitch regime, the fields of theses Bloch
modes exhibit very weak to no-overlap. Similarly with the high tight-binding regime in solid-state
physics, these field wavefunctions are better presented by maximally localized Wannier functions than
Bloch functions [72]. Below, we will be recalling these properties as we describe some PCF results
or features.
;ĂͿ ^ŽůŝĚͲƐƚĂƚĞƉŚǇƐŝĐƐ ;ĐͿ 'ƵŝĚĞĚ ƉŚŽƚŽŶŝĐƐ
WŽƚĞŶƚŝĂů s E ĂƚŽŵƐ ĨĨĞĐƚŝǀĞ E ǁĂǀĞŐƵŝĚĞƐ

Λ ͙ ŝŶĚĞǆŶĞĨĨ
Λ ͙
ũсϯ
ŶŚ
͙
ũсϮ
ũсϭ ͙
ŝƐƚĂŶĐĞǌ ŝƐƚĂŶĐĞǌ
ĨĨĞĐƚŝǀĞ
;ďͿ ;ĚͿ ŝŶĚĞǆŶĞĨĨ
ŶĞƌŐǇ ůĞǀĞůƐ
ŶŚ
Δ
E ĨŽůĚ ΛͲϭ ŬΛ
ĚĞŐĞŶĞƌĂƚĞ ůĞǀĞůƐ
Figure 6. Analogy illustration between the Tight Binding model in an atomic structure and the Photonic
Tight Binding model in an optical waveguide structure.
Figure 7. Curves of the dispersion of first modes for (a) an isolated rod and for (b) an array of similar
rods (reprinted with permission from Reference [7], Francis &Taylor, 2011).
Figure 8 illustrates the aforementioned properties through a realistic PCF cladding structure. The
latter consists of an array of high-index and isolated inclusions (typically doped silica) embedded
in a silica matrix arranged in a triangular lattice. This type of all-solid PCF was first proposed by
Birks and coworkers as a demonstration of PBG guidance with very low index contrast between the
high-index and the low-index materials [73]. Figure 8a shows the cladding structure DOPS over a large
normalized frequency range, from kΛ = 0 to kΛ = 70, spanning over the small pitch regime and large
17
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
pitch regime. The index of the high inclusion is nhi = 1.5 and that of the silica matrix is nlo = 1.45. The
band-structure of the modal spectrum is readily noticeable, especially for low kΛ. The bands (Figure 8a
gray-colored areas), consist of propagating Bloch modes, which are spatially extending over the whole
structure. In corroboration with the above toy model, the bands narrow down to a single line when kΛ
is sufficiently large. Figure 8b shows the intensity profile of the cladding unit cell modes for kΛ = 70.
At this high-normalized frequency, all the bands corresponding to ne f f > nlo are reduced to a single
line. This means that the Bloch modes of these photonic states exhibit a field that is highly localized
at the high-index inclusions and weakly-to-no overlapping field between the high-index inclusions.
Alternatively, and drawing the concept from solid-state physics, the photonic state modes at the large
pitch regime are better represented by maximally localized Wannier functions [72]. This is shown by
inspecting the mode intensity profile of the cladding modes at kΛ = 70 within the Wigner–Seitz unit
cell. Each ultra-narrow band clearly shows the well-known profile of guided modes of conventional
optical fiber, and labeled using the linear polarization (LP) approximation terminology.
Figure 8. (a) Density of photonic state of high inclusion PCF. The PCF structure consists of a glass
material with a uniform index n g = 1.45 (dashed horizontal line) and high index cylindrical-shaped
inclusions with diameter dhi = 0.46 × Λ and index of 1.5; (b) The intensity profile of representative
cladding modes shown within the Wigner-Seitz unit cell.
Using the lexicon of tight binding model, the highest effective index and the lowest effective
index modes of each band correspond to the symmetrical mode (“bound photonic-state”) and
antisymmetrical mode (“antibound”), respectively. Conversely, using fiber optics formalism, we
can recognize the highest effective index mode of the fundamental band, i.e., the band with the highest
ne f f , to be the fundamental space-filling mode (FSM), introduced by Birks et al. in their seminal work
on endlessly single mode PCF [33].
Moreover, when a core defect is introduced into this high inclusion PCF, an inspection of the PBG
regions in the DOPS (Figure 8a black areas) reveals several points on its optical guidance properties.
First, and after recalling that within the “photonic-crystal physics” approach TIR is only a particular
regime of PBG guidance corresponding to a defect with higher index than that of its cladding, this fiber
can guide via TIR if the index of the core defect fits inside region A. This means the core index is larger
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
than the FSM ne f f (the superposed yellow curve on DOPS of Figure 8a), which can be considered as
the cladding photonic structure “effective” material index. Second, the fiber can guide via PBG over a
large ne f f − kΛ range (black regions). Particularly, PBG guidance includes core materials with indices
lower than the lowest cladding material index (white dashed horizontal line). Also, the expected
fiber transmission spectrum presents multiple windows, and whose cut-offs are determined by the
allowed band edges. Third, we can draw two important general properties from the inspection of
this fiber DOPS in the large-pitch regime. Because the bands narrow down to the dispersion curves
of the single high-index inclusion, the cladding modal spectrum depends little on the pitch. In turn,
in the large-pitch regime a core defect exhibits a transmission spectrum whose cut-offs do not vary
strongly when the pitch is changed. Instead, they only depend on the high-index inclusion index and
size. This property led to refer to this particular regime of PBG guidance as antiresonant reflecting
optical waveguide (ARROW) introduced in the 1980s [51]. In a section below, we detail the distinctions
between ARROW, PBG, and IC. The second general property of note is that the large-pitch regime is
an example demonstrating that photonic structure periodicity is not necessary to exhibit PBG. Indeed,
because of the weak impact of the pitch on the DOPS, the initial triangular arrangement of the cladding
lattice can be changed to an amorphous one without significantly change the modal spectrum for
kΛ > 50.
4.2.2. Engineering PBG in HCPCF

Historically, the P-TBM was first demonstrated with PBG-HCPCF [2]; the results of which
are summarized in Figure 9. Unlike the high-index inclusion PCF, the PBG-HCPCF (Figure 9(Ia))
cladding lattice has more complex cladding lattice. Consequently, it is difficult in identifying the
constituent waveguiding components in the unit cell (Figure 9(Ib)). Before reviewing the results of
Reference [2], we recall that the guided optics analog of an atomic site is a photonic site consisting
of high index material surrounded by a lower index material and guides light via TIR. Furthermore,
two waveguide components differ (i.e., have different modal spectrum) via the difference in their
index or via the difference in their geometrical shape. Consequently, the first task in Reference [2] was
to identify the unit cell waveguiding features whose modes form the bands in the DOPS diagram.
Finally, a lower index material surrounded by higher index materials can support photonic states via
reflection/interference at the interference between two different index materials. Consequently, the
PBG-HCPCF unit cell considered here has the form of a set of glass sheet forming a hexagon with
prominent apices surrounding an air hole.
In a similar fashion with a crystal made with a heteronuclear molecule, the results show that the
PBG-HCPCF cladding unit cell is comprised with six enlarged glass nodes positioned at the apices
of the hexagon and six thin glass struts forming the sides of the hexagon. This was achieved by
visualizing numerically and experimentally the cladding Bloch modes of the bands that surround
the PBG below the air-line. Figure 9(IIa) shows the DOPS at the effective index and frequency range
close to this PBG. The latter is bordered at low kΛ by the low-index edge of band 1 (red curve), which
represents the low-frequency band edge of the hollow core transmission spectrum, and at the high
kΛ by the blue curve, which represents the high-frequency edge of hollow core transmission window.
Furthermore, the PBG closes at the low effective index by the dashed green curve. The Bloch mode
intensity profiles associated with these three dispersion lines have been calculated at the points of the
DOPS diagram labeled by (b), (c), and (d) for the red, blue, and dashed-green curves, respectively
(Figure 9(IIa)). The Bloch mode clearly shows an intensity profile dominantly confined in the apices
at the point B (Figure 9(IIb)), and dominantly confined in the struts at the point C (Figure 9(IIc)).
The Bloch mode at the point D shows an intensity profile dominantly in the air hole of the unit cell.
However, a non-negligible power fraction resides in the struts. This is due to hybridization between
the mode-band associated with the strut and the associated with air hole mode-band, which we detail
below. These modes were experimentally observed using both scanning near-field optical microscope
19
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
(SNOM) to image their near field and by imaging their profile during their propagation in the Fresnel
zone [2].
Figure 9. (I) HCPCF designed for 1064 nm guidance: (a) SEM of the fiber and (b) zoom in of its
cladding structure. The red lines indicate the interstitial apex, the silica strut, and the air hole regions.
(II) Numerical modeling: (a) Propagation diagram for the HCPCF cladding lattice; near field of (b)
the interstitial apex mode, (c) the silica strut mode, and (d) the air hole mode, (e) Zoom out of (a),
(f) Brillouin zone symmetry point nomenclature.
Figure 9(IIe) shows the DOPS over a large range of normalized frequency and effective index
spanning kΛ up to 45, and ne f f up to 1.25. Figure 10 reproduces this DOPS diagram supplemented
with the Bloch mode intensity profile for several points of the DOPS (lfh of Figure 10a) so to (i) identify
the modes of the different bands and (ii) show their dynamics and evolution with kΛ. In consistency
with P-TBM and the features observed with the high-index inclusion PCF, it is easy to distinguish the
structure of the bands and their narrowing to a single line when kΛ increases.
Figure 10a (lhs) shows six Bloch mode profiles for different bands and at normalized frequencies
higher than 35. The profile labeled 1 shows a spatially extended mode whose intensity is localized
with the glass apices, as expected from the high pitch regime. In particular, we can identify from this
the HE11 -like fundamental associated to an individual apex. Figure 10b shows the evolution of the
intensity profile of this mode when the normalized frequency is increased from 12 to 30. The results
show the enhancement in confinement of the light within the apex with increasing kΛ. At kΛ = 12,
the intensity of the transverse field extends outside the apex with a relatively large space-filling (top
of Figure 10b), whilst at kΛ = 30, the mode shows an intensity profile that is strongly confined with
the apex with little spatial overlap with the silica strut or air. This is a fiber–photonics illustration on
how photonic lattice modes evolve from a spatially delocalized state, which is suitably presented by
Bloch functions, to a highly localized lattice mode, which is conveniently represented by Wannier
functions. This feature of the cladding modes in the high pitch regime has been one of the driving
principles in the development of IC-HCPCF (see below). A further substantiation of the P-TBM is
shown in the mode profile labeled 2. This corresponds to a linear combination of the fundamental
mode of an individual silica strut. Conversely, all the profiles of Figure 10a (lfh) shows mode profiles
that are associated with either propagating modes of the individual apex or strut, or with supermodes
from the coupling between the two glass features. Consequently, one can deduce that the high-index
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
waveguiding components that make the PBG-HCPCF cladding lattice comprise a glass apex and glass
strut. To this structural feature, we note the existence of photonic band related to modes localized in
the air holes of the dielectric structure. The formation of these bands cannot be described by TBM
approach, instead they are formed akin to modes formed between to potential wells via reflection off
the low-high index interface.
Figure 10. (a) Propagation diagram for the HCPCF cladding lattice with a gallery of the different
guided modes. (b) Evolution of the interstitial apex mode for different kΛ.
A final remark on the structure of this DOPS relates to the dynamics at work when the photonic
bands cross each other. For this purpose, we consider the high inclusion cladding lattice, which unit
cell is formed by one single step-index waveguiding component (see Figure 8). Here, the DOPS shows
bands that cross with no splitting or anticrossing. This is because the bands are mutually orthogonal
because
they
stem from the same waveguide, and hence will not interact when they cross in the
kΛ, ne f f space. In the case of the PBG-HCPCF cladding lattice, we have seen that the unit cell is
formed by two glass waveguiding components, and the bands stem from either apex, strut modes or
air hole modes. This means that the modes of an “apex band” are notnecessarily
orthogonal with those
from a “strut band”. Consequently, when the mode crosses the same kΛ, ne f f they can anticross. The
DOPS of Figure 10 shows several of these anticrossings, such as the one near kΛ ∼ 23 and ne f f ∼ 1.
Below, we show how these features are exploited by Light et al. [74] to design and fabricate a HCPCF
with two bandgap transmission windows.
Figure 11 summarizes some of the results reported in Reference [74]. Figure 11a shows the near
air-line DOPS of the above PBG-HCPCF cladding lattice but with different relative size between the
apices and struts and with much higher air-filling fraction. This DOPS was achieved by optimizing the
apex
andstrut size and shape, and using the P-TBM to control the position of the bands within the
kΛ, ne f f -space. Another outcome from this work is the fact that the fundamental PBG results from a
strong anticrossing between the “fundamental apex band” and the “fundamental strut band”. This
was illustrated in Figure 11b, which shows the DOPS of a lattice made with apices only (red band) and
21
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
that of a lattice made with struts only (blue band). We clearly see that in the absence of apices, the strut
fundamental band never fully crosses the air line around the kΛ-range of 20 to 27. Thus indicating that
the shift of the band towards an effective index-range lower than one results from strong anticrossing
with the fundamental apex band.
Figure 11. (a) Density of photonic states for the cladding structure illustrated inset top-left with a strut
thickness of t = 0.01 Λ and apex meniscus curvature of r = 0.15 Λ. The colored lines trace the cladding
modes that form the edges of the two bandgaps. The wavelength in the upper x-axis is deduced
for a pitch of 6.7 μm. (b) Evolution of the cladding modes of apexes alone (red) and struts alone
(blue). (c) SEMs showing the fiber cross-section and the cladding structure. (d) Transmission spectra of
5 m lengths of the fabricated HCPCF with varying pitch, offset vertically for clarity (Reprinted with
permission from Reference [74], OSA, 2009).
Figure 11c,d shows the physical characteristics of the fabricated double-PBG HCPCF tailored to
guide at approximately 1.5 μm and 1 μm.
4.3. Inhibited Coupling HCPCF: How to Prevent Interaction between Longitudinally Phase-Matched Modes
4.3.1. Historical Account

This section deals with an optical guidance configuration where both the requirement of higher
index core material and cladding photonic bandgap is no longer, as is schematically shown in
Figure 4c. This configuration was first experimentally observed with the introduction of Kagome lattice
HCPCF [46], and outstands with the peculiar situation in which a core mode is guided with relatively
low loss at the same effective indices of cladding “continuum” of modes. The historical development
of our understanding on how such a fiber guides followed the following sequence. The first fabricated
Kagome HCPCF exhibited a very broad transmission spectrum, which ruled out the photonic bandgap
scenario. This was then corroborated numerically by inspecting the DOPS of the Kagome lattice, which
shows no PBG [75]. The fiber had a core diameter of only 15 μm, and showed attenuation loss of ~1
dB/m with relatively low bend sensitivity. This loss figure at such a core-diameter ruled out Fresnel
reflection based optical guidance in dielectric capillary studied by Marcatili and Schmeltzer in the
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
sixties [50]. Following this work, the predicted loss of the fundamental core-mode (i.e., HE11 ) of a glass
dielectric (refractive index: ng ) capillary of radius Rc , given by the expression

αcapillary = (2.405/2π )2 λ2 /Rc 3 n2g + 1/2 n2g − 1 , (1)
results in a loss range of 360 to 5000 dB/m at 400–1500 nm spectral range, which is over two orders of
magnitude higher than the experimentally observed with Kagome HCPCF. Also, the results in [46]
ruled out the possibility of guiding via antiresonant reflecting waveguidance (ARROW), introduced by
Duguay et al. [51]. ARROW guidance principle relies on the reflection enhancement off the interface
between the air-core and the dielectric cladding when the dielectric-thickness is strongly reduced. This
work aroused a number of effort in the eighties (see below on the difference between ARROW, PBG,
and IC), among which is the work from Archambault et al. [76] who derived the confinement loss of a
hollow-core fiber based on concentric antiresonant dielectric rings. The expression of the HE11 mode
minimum loss of a single antiresonant hollow fiber for the case of Rc λ, was found to be given by
−1
α ARROW,min = αcapillary (2.405 λ/Rc ) 2π n2g − 1 (2)
Similarly with the Fresnel reflection in the glass capillary, the ARROW model predicts a loss at
400–1500 nm in the range from 7 to 365 dB/m, which is higher than the measured loss of the Kagome
HCPCF. Subsequently, these findings raised the question on how cladding modes and a core mode
could have the same effective index without interacting. This interrogation was justified because the
findings go against the conventional wisdom in fiber optics, which states that guided-modes with the
same effective index strongly hybridize. However, this is not necessarily valid in heterostructures such
as HCPCF. Firstly, two modes with the same ne f f do not necessarily imply that the two modes have the
same wave vector, and subsequently, that modes with the same ne f f are not rigorously phase-matched,
and thus can avoid interacting. One can envisage, for example two modes in a dielectric heterostructure,
which are localized in different materials. Secondly, as is known in coupled-mode theory [77], the
coupling-strength between two modes is ruled not only by the effective index matching, but also by
the optical overlap between the modes. This means that if the optical overlap between two modes is
nil or strongly suppressed, they will not strongly interact.
The explanation to the optical guidance in Kagome-like HCPCF was given by using once again
concepts from quantum mechanics and solid-state physics. In 1929, Von Neumann and Wigner
reported on the existence of a bound electronic state with positive energy in an artificial potential
designed to extend to infinity in oscillatory fashion [3]. Such a counterintuitive situation describes
localized waves coexisting with a continuous spectrum of radiating waves that can carry energy away.
These localized waves were then later coined Bound States in the Continuum (BIC), also referred to
as embedded eigenvalues or embedded trapped-modes. The occurrence of BIC happens because of
symmetry incompatibility between localized waves and the radiation continuum, thus forbidding
the former to couple to the latter. We can also picture BICs as resonances with infinite lifetimes, and
quasi-BIC (QBIC) as resonances with high quality factor but finite. BICs and QBICs can be found
not only in quantum mechanics but in electromagnetic, acoustic, and water waves (see the dedicated
review to BIC by Hsu et al. [52]).
In 2007, Benabid and coworkers [4] introduced the BIC and QBIC concept to the field of
fiber–photonics by showing that the guided core-modes in Kagome HCPCF are longitudinally
phase-matched with a cladding mode-continuum. Analysis of the modal spectrum of the cladding
structure (see Figure 12a) showed that the intuitively expected coupling between the core-mode and
the cladding modes is inhibited by a strong transverse phase mismatch (i.e., symmetry incompatibility)
between the modes and the highly localization of the cladding mode in the cladding glass web
(i.e., spatial separation between the core air-mode and the cladding glass-modes). These results are
summarized in Figure 12b,c. The top of Figure 12b shows the DOPS of an infinite cladding of a
23
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Kagome lattice. The bottom of Figure 12b shows the effective index and confinement loss coefficient
for a Kagome lattice with 1-cell core defect (i.e., 1-cell Kagome HCPCF). The DOPS clearly shows
no photonic bandgap (i.e., DOPS = 0) in the mapped effective-index and frequency space. On the
other hand, the 1-cell Kagome HCPCF shows a core-guidance with loss figures of 1 to 0.5 dB/km
in a hexagon-shaped core with a size of 20 μm and with a large pitch of 12 μm [4]. The nature of
interaction between the core mode and the cladding is illustrated in Figure 12c. The top of the figure
shows representative mode profiles within the unit cell of infinite Kagome cladding near and below
the air-line. We distinguish three kinds of modes. Proceeding by analogy with fibers with cylindrical
symmetry, we associate the transverse phase of the silica-guided field with an effective azimuthal
index number “m” which governs the azimuthal field oscillations (i.e., along the strut length axis), and
a radial number “l”, which governs the field variation along the strut thickness [78] (see below for a
detailed account on m and l mode index numbers).
Figure 12. (a) Illustrations of Kagome lattice cladding HCPCF. (b) Calculated normalized DOPS
diagram as a function of the real part of the effective index and normalized wavenumber. The two low
DOPS intervals (blue colored regions) near the air light line neff = 1 (white dashed line) correspond
to band (I-noted A) and band (III-noted C). Band (II-noted E) corresponds to a strong anticrossing
between a lattice-hole mode (relatively flat red curve) and a particular type of mode associated with
the network of connected silica struts. (c) Nature of the Kagome lattice cladding modes. The first two
columns show the core mode and a cladding mode, respectively, for a frequency kΛ = 50 in band I (top)
and kΛ = 100 in band III (bottom). The third column shows the mode of an infinite Kagomé lattice
(Reprinted with permission from Reference [4], Science, 2007).
24
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
The first kind are highly oscillatory and highly localized photonic states (modes labeled A and C),
presented in the DOPS by steep blue-colored dispersion curves. The field of these silica modes are
associated with a very large m number. However, the mode labeled A shows no radial variation (l = 1,
see below), whilst mode C exhibits one oscillation (l = 2). The second kind of modes is represented by
lattice air modes, localized in the hexagon hole of the Kagome lattice (modes labeled B and D), and
stand out with a weak interaction with the silica modes, illustrated by the relatively flat brown-colored
dispersion. The third kind of modes are hybrid of silica and air modes (mode labeled E), and are
localized within specific frequencies. The latter occur at normalized frequencies given by the identity
kΛ = j(πΛ/t)/ n2g − 1 (j = 1, 2, 3, . . . ), and for the glass strut thickness considered in this work
(t = 0.044 Λ), the resonance condition for the hybridization corresponds to kΛ = 68, 136, etc. This
resonance condition is often found in the literature in the following form λ j = (2t/j) n2g − 1, where j
is integer related to the radial number as we will see below [30]. At this wavelength, the air HE11 -like
cladding lattice mode is transversely phase-matched with the silica lattice modes having the same
propagation constant, leading to mode hybridization. When an air core is introduced within the
photonic crystalline cladding, its HE11 -like mode experiences the same transverse matching with these
cladding modes, thus leading to the enhanced leakage from the fiber core around the same wavelength
values. This is clearly exposed in the bottom of Figure 12c, which shows cladding and core mode
of 1-cell core Kagome HCPCF. At normalized frequencies away from the air–silica mode resonance
(see the mode profiles at kΛ = 50 and kΛ = 100 in Figure 12c), the HE11 core mode coexists with silica
cladding mode with no strong interaction. On the other hand, at kΛ = 68 the mode profile shows that
of a hybrid mode between air and silica modes. Consequently, the resonant wavelength λ j can be used
to separate the Kagome DOPS near the air-line into multiple bands, which differ by the radial-number
of their silica modes. A property that is also seen in the transmission of the Kagome HCPCF, and
which further study when we consider below the tubular lattice.
It is worth mentioning that the Kagome lattice HCPCF core mode is leaky, and thus is a QBIC
instead of proper BIC. To explore the possibility of a truly BIC-guided mode in HCPCF, Birks et al. [79]
considered a cladding structure shown in Figure 13. This idealized Kagome-like structure consists of
orthogonally superimposing two infinite 1D periodic arrays of thin glass membranes
(index n2 ) in air
(index n1 ) and having an intersection with the refractive index given by n3 = n22 + 1 (see Figure 13A).
The results show that the fiber supports a strictly localized core mode and has no leakage loss
(Figure 13B) even though the mode has an effective index that lies within the continuum of radiation
modes filling the infinite cladding (Figure 13C). Furthermore, IC optical guidance was also observed
in solid-core PCF [39]. Finally, the results reported in Reference [4] provide the physical principles and
the design tools for fabricating lower confinement loss fibers, coined as inhibited-coupling guiding
fibers, which are detailed in the following section.
25
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 13. (A) Zoomed in crossing of glass webs separated by air of idealized Kagome structure. Index
of the air, webs, and intersections are n1 , n2 , and n3 , respectively. (B) Density plots of a strictly-localized
core mode (C). Continuum of radiation modes filling the infinite cladding (Reprinted with permission
from Reference [79], IEEE, 2010).
4.3.2. Design Tools for Low-Loss IC-HCPCF

The work in Reference [4] shows that QBIC and BIC in optical fibers is an interesting and novel
path in fiber photonics. The principles underlying the performance of IC-HCPCF are (1) a strong
transverse phase mismatch and (2) a weak spatial overlap between the core mode and the cladding
modes. This implies reduction in the overlap integral between the fields of the different modes that we
want to suppress their mutual interaction. This overlap integral takes the form of the inner product
ψcore |Δn2 |ψclad between the core and cladding mode transverse-fields. Denoting the latter by their
scalar wave function, we can write the wave function of the two effective index matched modes as
ψcore (r, θ, z) = Fcore (r, θ )eiφcore (r,θ ) eiβz and ψclad (r, θ, z) = Fclad (r, θ )eiφclad (r,θ ) eiβz . Here, the Fcore (r, θ ) and
Fclad (r, θ ) are real functions representing the field envelops of the core and cladding modes, and hence
their spatial localization. The quantities φcore (r, θ ) and φclad (r, θ ) represent their transverse phase, or
how the field oscillates under the envelop formed by Fcore (r, θ ) or Fclad (r, θ ). The term eiβz is associated
with the common propagation constant β of the two modes.
Based on this premise, without the need to perform numerical calculation, even if the real function
and the transverse phase terms are not necessarily separable we can state that inhibiting the interaction
26
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
between the modes can be achieved by reducing the spatial overlap between the mode fields, i.e., by

ensuring that Fcore (r, θ ) × Fclad (r, θ )rdθdr → 0 .
In the previous section, we have seen that operating in the large pitch regime (i.e., λ Λ),
the high-index material modes (i.e., glass mode in the HCPCF cladding) are highly localized with
very little optical power overlapping with low index material (i.e., air is in the considered HCPCF
cladding), and that are better presented as maximally localized Wannier functions than Bloch modes.
Consequently, the “large pitch regime” is the first cladding design criterion [80].
The second means to reduce the overlap integral is to have the integral containing the

transverse phase term, ei(φclad (r,θ )−φcore (r,θ )) rdθdr, vanishes. This infers having a strong symmetry
incompatibility between the two modes. Expanding the transverse phase term in a similar manner
as in Reference [30] (i.e., ei(φ(r,θ )) = ∑∞ m =0 A m R ( r ) e
imθ , with m being the azimuthal index number,
Am a constant, and R(r ) a radial complex function), the integral can be written in the form
r2 clad 2π
r1 R (r ) Rcore∗ (r )r 0 Amclad ,mcore ei(mclad −mcore )θ dθdr. Consequently, the reduction of the overlap
integral through “phase-mismatch engineering” implies a strong mismatch in the azimuthal-like
index number between the cladding and core modes (i.e., Δm = mclad − mcore 1). Taking a core
mode with no azimuthal number, such as HE11 , means that the coupling inhibition is achieved with a
cladding mode with mclad 1.
This transverse phase mismatch-induced IC is summarized in a “toy model” shown in Figure 14.
The figure considers the coupling between a glass rod HE11 mode and a semi-infinite glass membrane
effective-index matched modes using a semivectorial and perturbative approach. Here we compare the
coupling coefficients when the membrane mode transverse index number is increased. The transverse
field profile calculations show that both overlap integrals Cslab and Crod drop by four orders of
magnitude when the slab mode transverse phase period (i.e., the equivalent to the azimuthal number)
is increased from 4 to 19.
Figure 14. Top: Schematics of an optical coupling between a cylindrical dielectric rod and a semi-infinite
dielectric slab. The rod has a diameter of 0.5 μm and a refractive index nrod = 1.45, the slab thickness
is set to 0.5 μm, and the distance between the rod and the slab to 4 μm. The operating wavelength
λ = 1.55 μm for two cases. Case 1: the slab index is nslab = 1.1. Case 2: nslab = 1.45. Bottom: Calculated
electric transverse field profile and the overlap integrals for the two cases.
27
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
In conclusion, IC optical guidance relies on a strong transverse phase mismatch between the
core and cladding modes and on a very weak spatial overlap between them. These two criteria on
the optical modes transform into the following geometrical criteria. IC fibers rely on a cladding with
elongated and thin glass membranes with minimum corners and connecting nodes. It is noteworthy
that the driving principles in designing IC fibers stem from structuring the modal spectrum of the
cladding using chiefly quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics notions rather than those
from guided optics. For example, tracing the path of the field and its reflection and/or interference is
no longer required. Instead, we use the Hilbert space as the working space to identify the modal and
spectral structure of the cladding lattice. We then use the P-TBM approach to pinpoint the waveguiding
components of the lattice. Finally, we use the broad properties that underlie the dispersion, mode
structure and symmetry of individual waveguiding lattice component to infer the most optimal
cladding and core physical geometry.
These principles in designing low-loss IC-HCPCF were experimentally implemented by exploring
large pitch Kagome lattice, but also square and honeycomb lattices HCPCF [71,81,82]. Here the
confinement loss (CL) remained above 300 dB/km because of the unavoidable strut connections or
nodes. A much more significant CL reduction in IC-HCPCF was achieved with the introduction
of optimized core-contour. This contour took the form of a hypocycloid core-shape (also coined
negative curvature core-contour), which consists of a set of alternating negative curvature cups with
an inner radius Rin and an outer radius Rout and was presented by Benabid and coworkers in 2010
in a post-deadline paper of the CLEO conference [25], reported later in Reference [26]. This work
was then quickly followed by several reports on negative curvature core-contour HCPCF [53,54].
The rationale behind the choice of such a core-contour profile is schematically illustrated in Figure 15,
reproduced from [63]. Using the aforementioned design principles, the figure shows how the overlap
integral between the core-mode and the highly oscillating (i.e., high azimuthal-like number m)
silica core-surround mode (cladding-mode) is strongly reduced in an IC-HCPCF with a hypocycloid
core-contour compared to a circular-like contour (see Figure 15a). The reduction in coupling between
the HE11 core-mode and the cladding modes is reached via three avenues. Firstly, the spatial overlap of
the core HE11 mode with the silica core-surround is reduced from one that spans over the whole circle
perimeter in the case of the circular core shape to contour sections that are tangent with the six most
inner cups in the case of hypocycloid core shape. Secondly, the HE11 mode-field diameter is related to
the inner-core radius Rin of the hypocycloid contour. As such, because of the larger perimeter, L, of
the hypocycloid compared to that of a circle of
a radius Rin , the silica core-surround modes exhibit

higher m, which is related to L by m = ne f f λ1 1 − π Lt [26] (see Figure 15g). Hence, by virtue of a
stronger transverse phase-mismatch when m is increased, we have stronger IC between the core mode
and the cladding mode. Finally, the IC is enhanced by reducing the overlap between the core-mode
with the connecting nodes, which support low azimuthal number modes. Here, the distance between
connecting nodes and the circle associated with HE11 Mode Field Diameter (MFD) is increased when
the contour is changed from a circular shape to a hypocycloid one.
28
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
;ĂͿ
;ďͿ
ďсϬ ďсϬ͘Ϯ ďсϬ͘ϱ ďсϭ ďсϭ͘ϱ

;ĐͿ ;ĞͿ ;ŐͿ
&ƵŶĚĂŵĞŶƚĂů ŵŽĚĞ &ƵŶĚĂŵĞŶƚĂů ŵŽĚĞ
;ĚͿ ;ĨͿ ;ŚͿ

,ŝŐŚŽƌĚĞƌ ŵŽĚĞ ,ŝŐŚŽƌĚĞƌ ŵŽĚĞ
Figure 15. (a,b) Representation of the core contour curvature and Kagome IC HCPCF with different b.
Spectra of calculated CL (c) and optical overlap with silica coefficient η (d) of Kagome HCPCF with the
different b parameter (reprinted with permission from Reference [63], OSA, 2013). Evolution with b
parameter of the CL and the optical overlap with silica coefficient η at 1030 nm for HE11 fundamental
core mode (e) and for the lowest-loss higher order mode (f). Evolution with b parameter of the CL
and m evolution at 1030 nm for HE11 fundamental core mode (g) and for the lowest-loss higher order
mode (h).
The above principles were used in the recent development of low-loss IC-HCPCF, which we
account below for both Kagome lattice and tubular-lattice cladding structure.
4.3.3. Hypocycloidal Core-Contour Kagome Lattice HCPCF

Following, the first demonstration of hypocycloidal Kagome IC-HCPCF, a comprehensive
experimental and theoretical account was reported in References [63,83], showing the impact of
the negative curvature and the cladding ring number on the CL. In particular, how strong CL reduction
is achieved by optimizing the negative curvature. Figure 15 summarizes some of these findings by
comparing Kagome IC-HCPCF with different core contours. Figure 15a defines the negative curvature
29
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
by the parameter b = d/r, and Figure 15b shows the different fibers explored. Here, the silica strut
thickness and the core inner-diameter were taken to be 350 nm and 60 μm, respectively.
Figure 15e shows respectively the evolution of the CL and the fundamental core mode HE11

optical overlap with the silica core contour, η, defined as η = S pz dS/ S∞ pz dS, with pz being the
Si
z-component of the mode field Poynting vector, and Ssi and S∞ are the cross section area for the silica
and the full fiber, respectively. The confinement loss spectrum evolution with b clearly shows a drastic
reduction when the core-contour evolves from a circular (i.e., b equal to 0) to elliptical cup-shape
(i.e., b > 1). For a circular core-contour, which is representative of the initial Kagome HCPCF, the CL
remains larger than 0.1 dB/m for the wavelength range of 400 to 2000 nm, in corroboration with the
measured transmission loss of the previously fabricated Kagome fibers. For b larger than 0.5 the loss
drops down to ~1 dB/km for the fundamental transmission band and down to ~0.01 dB/km for the
1st higher order band. These CL figures are comparable to those of PBG-HCPCF with finite cladding
size. This is a seemingly remarkable situation when we recall the coexistence of the core mode with a
cladding mode continuum. Conversely, the optical overlap η follows the same reduction trend with
increasing b. The optical overlap drops by more than one order of magnitude from ~3 × 10−5 to down
to ~10−6 . In addition of being correlated with the CL, the optical overlap with silica is a determinant
factor in the application of IC-HCPCF in high-field optics (see the section on applications). Figure 15e,f
shows the evolution of CL, η with b at a wavelength fixed at 1030 nm for HE11 and one of the lowest
loss higher order mode. The curves clearly display the effect of increasing b on the reduction of the
spatial overlap between the core mode and the cladding via the decrease of η. Similarly, Figure 15g,h
shows the evolution of CL and m with b, which clearly shows the correlation between the increase of m
(i.e., increase of the transverse phase mismatch) and the reduction in CL on one hand and between
the increase of m and the increase in b, in consistency with the IC model predictions. We note that for
b > 0.5, η saturates, whilst the CL continues to decrease with increasing b. Particularly, increasing b
above 0.5 is associated with both CL further decrease, and further increase in m. Thus indicating the
CL reduction is dominated by the transverse-mismatch when b increases from 0.5 to 2. This work in
designing IC-HCPCF showed that CL scales with αCL ∝ t λ4.3 b−2 , and the minimum loss
t, b, and λ as
for higher order bands to at wavelength λmin = 2t/(l − 12 ) n2g − 1, with l being the order of the
transmission windows (i.e., the radial number of the silica lattice modes) [65].
Today, state-of-the-art Kagome IC-HCPCF is represented in Figure 16. The first fiber (Figure 16a)
has a b = 0.95, and exhibits a minimum loss of ~8 dB/km at its 1st order transmission band, tailored
to operate near 1 μm. The second fiber, designed to have a broadband fundamental band, exhibits a
single window spanning down to 700 nm with a loss below 100 dB/km over one octave. Here, the
CL is set by the limited achievable b at a thickness of 300 nm, which was found to be ~0.45. Such a
state-of-the-art was one part of a series of transmission loss records at different wavelength ranges,
which occurred since the first experimental demonstration of negative curvature HCPCF in 2010.
Within eight years the loss figure dropped from ~100 dB/km to 8 dB/km, which represents a “drop
rate” of more than 10 dB/km per year. This trend is bound to continue following two emerging trends.
The first trend impacts the loss in longer wavelengths (>1000 nm), and is a continuation of last decade
effort, which consists of reducing the CL by exploring alternative fiber cladding and core designs with
lower confinement [56–60]. The second one consists of lowering the loss in the short wavelength range
(<800–1000 nm), and which solution requires reducing the surface-scattering loss (SSL), which is now,
like with the PBG HCPCF, the limiting factor in IC-HCPCF.
30
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
(a) (b)
(a)
(b)
Figure 16. (a,b) Experimental loss spectrum of the loss record Kagome IC-HCPCF at an approximately
1030 nm spectral range and broadband-guiding Kagome IC-HCPCF (reprinted with permission from
Reference [65], OSA, 2018).
Indeed, in addition to the CL, the modal propagation is attenuated by two additional sources: the
bend loss and the scattering loss.
The bend loss is affected by both core-size and the cladding structure as illustrated in Figure 17.
Figure 17a are results reported by Maurel et al. [65], which show experimentally measured and
numerically calculated HE11 core-mode confinement loss evolution with bend radius at λ = 1064 nm
for a hypocycloid-core Kagome with b = 0.95, core inner radius of 25.5 μm, and silica strut thickness
of 800 nm. The numerical values give a bend loss of below 5 dB/km for Rb > 20 cm, of ~47 dB/km
for Rb = 10 cm, and almost 400 dB/km for Rb ≤ 2.5 cm. These results show excellent agreement
with a Rb−2 fit, in consistency with the findings of Marcatili and Schmeltzer for the dielectric capillary
tubes [50].
Figure 17b shows loss spectrum evolution of the fiber HE11 core mode 1st high-order transmission
window for the different Rb . In addition to the confinement loss increase with the decreasing Rb , the
spectrum shows bend induced resonant loss at several wavelengths, in agreement with the findings
by Couny et al. (see Figure S3 and its associated text [4]). These loss resonances occur when the
bend-induced effective index-variation induces transverse phase matching between the core mode
and the cladding modes. As pointed out in Reference [4], because the Kagome silica lattice modes are
associated with a very high effective azimuthal number m, a perturbation which may induce coupling
between the core mode and such cladding modes necessarily requires a large Δm. On the other
hand, a fiber bend is primarily associated with a change in m of just 1. Consequently, the observed
bend-induced resonant coupling is caused by either cladding air modes or by cladding silica modes
with low azimuthal number. The latter are spectrally localized near the red edge of the transmission
window. Indeed, the red edge of each of the higher-order transmission windows in an IC-HCPCF
corresponds to a unity-increment in the radial number of the cladding silica modes. In turn, over a
frequency range close to the band red edge, these additional modes exhibit low azimuthal number
modes. They manifest in Figure 17b as several narrow absorption peaks over the wavelength range of
1350 nm and 1500 nm.
31
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
;ĂͿ ;ďͿ
;ĐͿ ;ĚͿ
;ĞͿ
Figure 17. Calculated and measured bend loss evolution at λ = 1064 nm with bend radius (a), and (b)
loss spectra for different bend radii of HE11 core mode of a hypocycloid-core Kagome HCPCF (reprinted
with permission from Reference [83], OSA, 2013). Calculated and measured loss evolution with bend
radius for a hypocycloid-core Kagome HCPCF with b = 0.3, t ≈ 440 nm, and Rin between 23.5 and
29 μm, and having different cladding ring number at 1500 nm (c) and 1550 nm (d). (e) The calculated
intensity profile of the mode when the fiber is under a bend of a radius of 1.1 cm for Kagome IC HCPCF
with different cladding ring number (reprinted with permission from Reference [83], OSA, 2013).
The wider peak shown in the red curve of Figure 17b relates to a coupling with an air
cladding-mode. This was previously shown by Alharbi et al. [83] in their experimental and numerical
study of the cladding effect on confinement loss. Figure 17c,e shows, both experimentally and
theoretically, the sensitivity to bend for a Kagome HCPCF with different cladding ring number.
Figure 17c,d shows the evolution of loss with bends at 1500 and 1550 nm wavelengths, respectively.
The latter are representative wavelengths of the fundamental transmission window that are further
from those corresponding low azimuthal cladding modes. At both wavelengths, the loss evolution
with the radius shows a peak at approximately Rb = 1.1 cm. Figure 17d shows the intensity profile of
the fiber mode at this bend value and shows a coupling between the core mode and a mode residing
in one the cladding holes. Outside this resonant bend radius range, the bend loss decreases with Rb
following Rb−2 . Finally, Figure 17c,d shows the effect of cladding ring number on the CL for different
bends. The results show strong dependence on the wavelength. For 1500 nm, a second ring drops
the CL by more than one order of magnitude. This can be explained by the reduction in the leakage
32
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
through tunneling to outside the cladding. However, this argument is not necessarily true for all
IC-HCPCF and strongly depends on the cladding/core structure and wavelength. This is illustrated by
the impact of adding 3rd or 4th ring on the CL. Here, we observe that the latter additional rings have
little effect. Furthermore, at 1550 nm, the effect of adding additional rings is marginal and sometimes
disadvantageous as the CL is increased for a given bend radii. This illustrates the key difference of IC
guidance mechanism when compared to PBG guidance (including TIR guidance), where the reduction
of the core more leakage cannot simply be achieved by increasing the cladding thickness. Instead, both
the tunneling to the outside the fiber and coupling to cladding modes must be taken into account.
Within this framework, we argue that adding an extra cladding ring IC-HCPCF increases the cladding
mode number, and hence the residual coupling between the core and the cladding modes. In the case
of Kagome lattice, adding more than two rings implies increasing the connecting struts to a level that
weakens the IC compared to the 2-ring cladding design.
Finally, the third source of propagation loss is the surface roughness scattering (SSL). This is
caused by the surface roughness of the glass web of the HCPCF, and has first been reported by Roberts
et al. in the case of PBG fibers [49,84]. Indeed, SSL was identified as the limiting factor in PBG-HCPCF
because of the large optical overlap between the core mode and the core silica surround. The surface
roughness results from the frozen capillary waves that are present during drawing process. This type
of propagation loss is expressed as
αSSL (λ) = ς·η (λ)·λ−3 (3)
where σ is a constant related to the surface roughness root-mean-square height, and η (λ) is the core
mode overlap with the core-contour [49,56]. The typical value of η (λ) is ~1% for 7-cell PBG HCPCF
and ~0.1% for a 19-cell PBG HCPCF.
For IC HCPCFs, the SSL was often ignored because of the very small values of η (λ), which are
typical in the range of 10−4 and 10−6 (see, e.g., Figure 15d), and because of the higher CL loss that
characterized IC-HCPCF before the introduction of hypocycloid core-contour. However, recently
measured propagation loss of less than 10 dB/km are common with IC-HCPCF. For example, one
the fibers shown in Figure 16 shows a transmission loss of ~8.5 dB/km at a wavelength range near
1030 nm [65]. In this work, it was shown that the CL is no longer the limiting factor for IC-HCPCF
at wavelength shorter than 1 μm, in consistency with the results reported in Reference [30] for
tubular amorphous lattice IC-HCPCF (see following section). In fact, for wavelengths shorter than
1 μm, all the measured loss spectra of the different reported Kagome IC-HCPCF show increase with
decreasing wavelength, which is contrary to the predicted CL. These results indicate that the surface
roughness induced scattering loss is the dominant factor. Hence, any future improvement in IC-HCPCF
transmission performance in these short wavelength ranges implies either a reduction in the surface
roughness or further reduction in the optical overlap η.
4.3.4. Hypocycloid Core-Contour and Nodeless Tubular Lattice IC HCPCF

One of the cladding structures that followed the seminal introduction of hypocycloid core-contour
in 2010 is a tubular cladding, which has shown a lot of promise and interest. The fiber form of this
dielectric structure exhibits a hypocycloid core-contour, and consists of an amorphous lattice of isolated
tubes arranged to form a circular layer around a hollow-core. An example of this single-ring tubular
lattice HCPCF (SR-TL-HCPCF) is shown in Figure 18a, where the fiber cladding consists of a single ring
made with eight nontouching tubes. What is particularly significant with such a fiber is the absence of
connecting nodes at the cladding region surrounding the hollow-core, which are the primary source
of coupling between the core mode and cladding modes in IC-HCPCF because their cladding low
azimuthal number modes.
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 18. (a) Schematic of HCPCF with a single-ring tubular amorphous lattice (i), tubular lattice in
a triangular arrangement (ii), and the details of its unit cell (iii). δ is the intertube gap distance, Rt is
the tube radius, and t is the tube ring thickness (reprinted with permission from Reference [30], OSA,
2017). (b) DOPS of an infinite cladding of a triangular arrangement of tubes (reprinted with permission
from Reference [30], OSA, 2017). (c) Modal spectrum near the air-line formed by silica ring modes
((A) and (D)), air modes (B), and silica–air hybrid modes (C–E). (d) Effective index and loss spectra
of fundamental mode of a tubular lattice hollow-core defect. (e) Eight tubes SR-TL-HCPCF modal
spectrum. Zoom in of the modal spectrum over the normalized frequency range of 0.97 to 1.06 (rhs).
As we have seen in a previous section, when we operate in the large pitch region, the modal
spectrum is not very sensitive to the pitch. Consequently, as shown in Reference [30], the arrangement
34
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
of the tubes has little impact on the modal spectrum of the resulting lattice. Figure 18b shows the
resulting DOPS of an infinite cladding of a triangular arrangement of tubes (see middle of Figure 18a
for the lattice and
the rhs of Figure 18a for the lattice unit cell). Here, the normalized frequency is set
to be F = (2t/λ) n2g − 1, and spanning from 0.5 to 1.5. The DOPS (see Figure 18b) and the lattice
unit cell mode profiles (see Figure 18c) show the same essential features of the Kagome lattice. The
tubular-lattice DOPS shows no bandgap and is populated with a continuum of photonic states. Near
the air-line, the modal spectrum is formed by lattice modes consisting of silica ring modes, air modes,
and silica–air hybrid modes (see top of Figure 18c). For the frequency range away from the anticrossing
region near F = 1, we note the high azimuthal oscillations of the silica tube modes observed with the
Kagome lattice (see Figure 18c mode profiles (A) and (D)). Figure 18c shows also the lattice air-modes
(unit cell mode profiles (C) and (B)), and lattice hybrid-modes that populate the DOPS region near
F = 1 and near neff = 1 (unit cell mode profiles in the box (E)).
Figure 18d shows the effective-index and loss spectra of the fundamental mode when a
hollow-core defect is introduced into the tubular lattice. Similarly to Kagome HCPCF, the
SR-TL-HCPCF shows low loss transmission bands separated by high loss bands. The high loss
band corresponds to the spectral location of the hybrid modes, highlighted in Figure 18b DOPS by
the red-colored shaded box, and occurs at the vicinity of F = j, ( j = 1, 2, 3, . . .), which is simply
the air–silica mode resonance condition kΛ = j(πΛ/t)/ n2g − 1 (j = 1, 2, 3, . . . ), mentioned above.
A close-up view of the modal spectrum of the eight tubes SR-TL-HCPCF near F = 1, and ne f f = 1 is
shown in Figure 18e. Here, the plots contain both the defect core air-mode (horizontal curves in the
effective range between 0.9998 and 0.99985), and the cladding modes. The rhs is a further zoom-in
of the modal spectrum over the normalized frequency range of 0.97 to 1.06. The plot shows a large
number of anticrossings and dispersion branches corresponding to resonant interaction of the tube air
HE11 mode with different silica modes. The intricate modal structure of this high loss region clearly
indicates that the resonance, F = j, which is extensively used in ARROW model (see section below),
does not fully capture the dynamics of such hybridization between the air modes and the silica modes.
Below, we explore the fact that unlike with the Kagome unit cell, the isolated silica tubes modes
have identifiable profiles and even analytical expressions [85] to use it as an educational platform for
IC guidance mechanism and to draw its salient properties, which were cumbersome to draw with the
Kagome lattice. In particular, we can extract a transverse phase relationship between the silica mode
and the air mode when they are longitudinally phase-matched (i.e., having the same ne f f ), and thus
identify the modes behind the high loss band.
The silica tube modes are classified as HEml (i.e., electric field direction is azimuthal) or EHml
(i.e., electric field direction is radial) [85]. In the work of Debord et al. [30], it was shown that
their effective index was given by approximating the tube to a slab. Within this approximation, the
propagation constant β of the silica tube modes can be written as
2 2
β ml 2 = n g k − β2⊥ = n g k − β2θ + β2r , (4)
with ⎧
⎪ π
⎨ β θ = m 2 π Rt
β r = (l − 1) πt (5)
⎪
⎩ k = 2π
λ .
Here, β ⊥ is the transverse component of the silica mode wavevector. In cylindrical coordinates,
the transverse wavevector can be composed of an azimuthal component β θ and a radial component β r .
Thus, m and l are the index number of the azimuthal and radial variation of the glass mode, respectively.
35
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
On the other hand, the air mode of the tube can be approximated to that of a capillary given
by Marcatili and Schmeltzer [50]. Within this approximation, a HE/EH air mode has a propagation
constant given by
uμλ 2
β μλ 2 = k2 1 − (6)
k Rt

Here, uμλ is the λth zero of the Bessel function Jμ−1 uμλ . Under the condition of
longitudinal-phase matching (i.e., β μλ = β ml ), the tubular-lattice glass mode azimuthal and radial
indices (i.e., m and l), the air mode azimuthal and radial indices (i.e., μ and λ), Rt , t are related through
the following identity, which provides the spectral location of the intersection between the dispersion
curves of glass modes and the air modes:
2 u 2
m π 2
μλ
+ ( l − 1) = k2 n2g − 1 + . (7)
2 Rt t Rt
Furthermore, in this case, the condition of longitudinal phase-matching between the HE/EH air
modes and the silica tube HEml /EHml modes’ full phase-matching condition (i.e., the modes have also
the same β ⊥ ) is impossible because of the difference in index of the respective mode media. However,
coupling between the air mode and the silica mode can occur through directional coupling whose
strength is set by the couple waveguide parameter X = Δβ/2κ [86]. Where Δβ is the longitudinal
mismatch and κ is the power coupling coefficient between the two modes.
According to IC, we have seen that such a coupling can be reduced or strengthen depending on
the mismatch in the azimuthal number of the modes. If we limit the case of the air mode HE11 on one
hand, and consider silica modes with no azimuthal variation or very low one (i.e., mλRt 1), Equation
(6) can be written for the case of tube radius much larger than the wavelength as [30]

π
β r = ( l − 1) = k2 n2g − 1 (8)
t
The above expression can be written by setting l − 1 ≡ n in a form that is commonly used in
ARROW literature (see following section), such as

λn = (2t/(n)) n2g − 1 (9)
According to the above, the IC approach shows that the ARROW formula from Duguay et al. [51]
is an asymptotic limit when the azimuthal variation of the cladding mode is ignored, and the integer n
is related to the radial number of the cladding silica modes. That being said, it is worthwhile that in
ARROW approach, the cladding modal spectrum is not considered at all.
Below, we further examine the modal spectrum of the tubular lattice near F = 1, as it represents
the spectral range where we can find both air and silica modes with inhibited coupling, and those with
a strong hybridization.
Figure 19 summarizes the modal interaction dynamics near F = 1. Figure 19a shows the close-up
of the DOPS and representative cladding lattice modes for F < 1 on the lfh panel and for F ≥ 1 on the
rhs panel. In similar fashion as with Figures 12 and 18, we retrieve the silica and air modes along with
their hybrid forms. However, in this DOPS diagram, we color-coded the dispersion of the silica modes’
radial number.
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 19. (a) Modal spectrum and lattice mode profiles near F = 1. Intensity profiles of a representative
silica mode with high azimuthal number and radial number l = 1 (EH35,1 ) and its evolution when the
mode approaches HE11 air mode (lhs). DOPS diagram (middle). Intensity profiles of a representative
silica–air hybrid mode (HE11 air mode and HE12 silica mode) and its evolution when the mode
approaches HE11 air mode (rhs). The blue filled circles and the yellow filled squares in the DOPS
diagram represent the F − ne f f locations of the silica mode on the left and the hybrid mode on the right
respectively. (b) Zoom out view of the DOPS diagram near F = 1 (i), Close-up near an anticrossing
between the HE11 air mode and l = 2 silica mode (EH5,2 ) (ii) and the intensity profile of the associated
mode (iii). Close-up near an ultraweak anticrossing crossing between the HE11 air mode and l = 1 high
azimuthal number silica mode (HE47,1 ) (iv), and the intensity profile of the associated mode (v).
The lattice silica modes with radial number l = 1 (i.e., the EH/HEm,1 ) are represented by orange
dotted steep lines, and we distinguish them from the EH/HEm,2 silica modes with radial number l = 2,
which are represented by dark-blue colored thick steep lines. As it has been seen with the Kagome
lattice [4], EH/HEm,2 lattice silica modes populate transmission bands with l ≥ 2, whilst EH/HEm,1
lattice silica modes populate all the transmission bands. On the lhs of the DOPS diagram, we show the
mode intensity profiles of the EH35,1 lattice silica modes at three different points of its dispersion curve
(blue line crossed by blue filled circles). We can see that this mode interacts little with the air modes,
illustrated by both its highly silica-localized intensity, and its dispersion curve intersecting the HE11 air
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
mode dispersion curve with no observable anticrossing (within the plot ne f f and F resolution). Based
on the above and previous works [4,30], it is obvious to correlate this coupling inhibition between the
air mode and the silica mode to the fast azimuthal oscillations.
On the other hand, the first lattice silica mode with radial number 2, HE1,2 , strongly interacts with
the HE11 air mode. This is shown by the light-pink curve and the yellow square symbols; which are
superimposed on the upper branch of the strong anticrossing between the two modes. The rhs of the
DOPS diagram shows representative mode profiles along this curve. We can readily see the modal
evolution from a HE1,2 , silica-dominated lattice mode for ne f f > 1 to HE11 air-dominated lattice mode
when ne f f < 1. Additional anticrossings are also observed between low m number silica-EH/HEm,2 ,
and air-HE11 (see DOPS diagram).
Within this spectral range, the strength of these anticrossings decreases with increasing frequency.
Figure 19b highlights the overall picture of the anticrossing between the lattice silica modes with the
lattice air mode HE11 (Figure 19(bi)) and a close-up view of a DOPS region located on the lower ne f f
branch of the anticrossing (Figure 19(bii)–(bv)). Within a small range of the normalized frequency
F~1.15–1.158, Figure 19(bii) displays the different anticrossing between the air-HE11 lattice mode
and the low azimuthal number lattice silica modes EH/HEm,2 (blue lines) and the high azimuthal
number lattice silica modes EH/HEm,2 (brown lines). An example of such low azimuthal variation
the EH/HEm,2 mode is shown in Figure 19(biii). This mode exhibits an azimuthal number of m = 5,
and is associated with relatively large anticrossing at F~1.159. On the other hand, at the vicinity of
this frequency, the figure shows a much smaller anticrossing (indicating a strong coupling inhibition),
which is zoomed in in Figure 19(biv), with its corresponding mode profile (Figure 19(bv)). The latter
corresponds to the HE47,1 silica lattice mode, and as expected it has a radial number l = 1, and a large
azimuthal variation, with m = 47.
We conclude this analysis by noting that all the aforementioned features and the modal coupling
dynamics are also valid when we consider a hollow core defect to form a tubular amorphous lattice
HCPCF. In Equations (6) and (7) we only need to replace the lattice tube radius Rt with the inner
radius Rc of the HCPCF core. This is illustrated in Figure 18e, which shows the modal spectrum for a
SR-TL HCPCF.
Following the introduction of negative curvature in 2010 [25], the first fabricated fiber of the above
described SR-TL HCPCF was reported in 2011 by Pryamikov et al. [53]. Here, the fiber was made with
touching tubes whose thickness was larger than 1 μm. The fiber operated at 3.5 μm wavelength and
longer, with transmission loss figure of 34 dB/km. Also, SR-TL HCPCF was analyzed theoretically for
THz-wave guidance [55]. Since then, this type of fiber has been explored in various designs by many
groups by changing the tube number and thickness, the core size, and even the jacket tube shape for
fabrication convenience [87–89].
Figure 20 summarizes the current state-of-the-art (SOA) of SR-TL HCPCF in terms of loss and
bandwidth of the fundamental transmission band. The left panel shows the electronic micrographs and
the loss spectra of the two SR-TL HCPCF representing this SOA. Using the IC model described above
as a design tool, the two fabricated fibers resulted from an optimization study in its architecture design
(i.e., tube number, radius, and thickness and intertube gap) and its fabrication limit (i.e., minimum
thickness and cladding structure shape) [30]. One particular finding of this work is the azimuthal
distribution of the power leakage of SR-TL HCPCF and its evolution with the intertube gap δ
(Figure 20e). The Figure 20e shows the evolution with δ of the Poynting vector radial component at
minimum-loss wavelengths of the fundamental and 1st order transmission bands. The results showed
that there is an optimum value of δ to achieve a low CL. Also, it was shown that when δ is smaller
than a critical value (here ~2 μm), the power leakage “channel” is the connecting nodes between the
tubes and the outer silica jacket. Conversely, when the gap size is larger than 6 μm, the loss channel
changes to that of the intertubes gaps (see Figure 20e).
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 20. (a,c) SEM pictures of the fabricated 7.7 dB/km loss and broadband-guiding SR-TL HCPCFs,
respectively. (b,d) Measured loss spectra of the two fibers (black curve) compared to theoretical SSL
and CL evolutions. (e) Theoretical transverse distribution of radial component of Poynting vector for
SR-TL fiber with different δ values from 2 to 8 μm (Reprinted with permission from Reference [30],
OSA, 2017).
The fibers have eight tubes and an intertube gap of 2.7 μm. The first one demonstrated record
transmission loss for an IC HCPCF with a figure of 7.7 dB/km at 750 nm (see Figure 20a for the SEM
picture of the fabricated fiber and Figure 20b for the measured loss spectrum). Guidance in the UV
spectral range down to 200 nm has also been demonstrated. The second fiber presents a thinner
struts structure, and hence a broader transmission fundamental window with low loss guidance
over one octave between 600 to 1200 nm. The losses in this band are in the range of 10 to 20 dB/km
(see Figure 20c for the SEM picture of the fabricated fiber and Figure 20d for the measured loss
spectrum). These fibers have shown close to single-mode propagation with an extinction ratio between
the fundamental core mode and the first high order modes of ~20 dB. Finally, and similarly to Kagome
HCPCF, the results show that the loss is limited by SSL for the short wavelength range and by CL for
wavelength longer than 1 μm. Figure 20b,d shows the contribution to the measured fiber loss of the CL
(dotted blue curves) and SSL (dashed red curves) based on a fitted peak-to-peak fluctuation height of
1.5 nm. For both fibers, we can observe that for wavelength >1 μm, the CL dominates the propagation
loss, whilst for shorter wavelength, the SSL is the principal source of the transmission loss.
It is noteworthy that SR-TL HCPCF is still the subject of ongoing and active research, with progress
being reported continuously. Among these recent results, we have the report on a 9-tube-based SR-TL
HCPCF operating in the “green” spectral range [90]. The fiber demonstrated an impressive loss value
of 13.8 dB/km at 539 nm [90], which is comparable to the Rayleigh scattering limited silica transmission
loss of 10 dB/km at this wavelength. Also, this fiber is the first reported IC HCPCF to be drawn over a
distance longer than 1 km with a variation of the outer diameter less than ±0.2%. Also, more recently,
guidance in the UV with this fiber design has been targeted by scaling down the strut thickness of
the tubes and the core size. Loss figure of 130 dB/km at 300 nm has been reported [91]. Finally, the
modified tubular lattice IC-HCPCF, optimized for the telecom wavelength, range was reported to have
a transmission loss as low as 2 dB/km at ~1500 nm [58].
4.4. Difference between ARROW, PBG and IC

The above sections showed how the optical fiber guidance mechanism is governed by the cladding
structure and its modal spectrum. Here, we conclude this topic by touching on the guidance by
antiresonance (i.e., ARROW). This is motivated by the recent surge of the ARROW terminology, which
was used invariably to describe PBG-guiding [73,92] and IC-guiding fibers, thus creating confusion
39
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
within the readership on how light is guided within microstructured optical fibers and on how to
differentiate between them. Here, we give the reader some distinctive properties that could be useful
in distinguishing between PBG, IC and ARROW.
The idea of antiresonant reflection was originally used in interferometry to distinguish the
working conditions where a Fabry–Perot reflectivity is at its maximum [76]. In 1986, Duguay et al.
extended this notion to optical waveguide by proposing a planar waveguide with a low-index core
surrounded by higher index dielectric thin layers, and by studying light propagation in the core at
glancing angles [51]. Here, the optical confinement is ensured by the reflectivity enhancement due to
the high-index layer thickness reduction to the micrometer scale. Following Duguay et al., dielectric
ring waveguide with micrometric thickness layers was studied [76,93,94]. The ARROW induced
transmission improvement of these dielectric ring waveguides over a thick dielectric tubes [50] was
found to be proportional to the ratio of the ring radius over the wavelength (see Equation (2)).
Figure 21 captures the main differences and similarities between a glass capillary, a glass ring and
two negative curvature contour IC-HCPCFs by plotting the dispersion and CL spectra. On one hand,
Figure 21a compares the glass ring to a glass capillary and, on the other hand, Figure 21b compares the
glass ring to a Kagome and Tubular IC-HCPCF.
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P >@
P >@
P >@
P >@
;ďͿ
Figure 21. (a) lhs: Effective index spectrum glass capillary (black curves) and 600 nm thick ring (red
curves) for the case of a radius of 22.5 μm (solid lines) and 10 μm (solid lines). rhs: Loss spectrum of
22.5 μm radius glass capillary calculated using the expression of Reference [50] (black dashed-dotted
curve). Loss spectrum of 22.5 μm radius and 600 nm thick glass ring using the expression from
Reference [76]. (b) Effective index (lhs) and loss spectra (rhs) of ring, SR-TL, and Kagome fiber with
similar core diameter of 22.5 μm and struts thickness of 600 nm.
Figure 21a compares the dispersion and the loss between the glass capillary and the ring for
different parameters and using different expressions. The left panel of Figure 21a shows the ne f f
spectrum of the capillary and the ring for two diameters (black curves). The ring dispersion was taken
from Zeisberger et al. [95] and reproduced below.
−1
−1
(ring) (cap)
ne f f (λ) ≈ ne f f (λ) − (u11 2 λ3 )((2π )3 Rin 3 ) ctg 2π
λ t n2g − n2e f f n2g − 1 n2g + 1 /2 (10)
(cap)
Here, ne f f (λ) is the effective index of a dielectric capillary (see Equation (5)) and t and Rin are
the silica ring thickness and radius, respectively. The results show that for wavelengths which are
40
Fibers 2019, 7, 16

away from the resonant wavelength λn = (2t/(n)) n2g − 1 (see above), the dispersion of the ring is
very close to that of the capillary. Also, the approximation of the ring dispersion to that of the capillary
improves with larger core diameters. On the other hand, at the vicinity of the resonant wavelengths,
the ring dispersion curve shows an anticrossing which strength (i.e., spectral width) increases with
smaller core diameter, as illustrated in the difference between waveguides of 22.5 μm radius ring
(curve red) and 10 μm radius ring.
The right panel of Figure 21a shows the transmission loss of the HE11 core mode in 45 μm diameter
glass capillary using the expression given by Marcatili et al. [50] (black dash-dotted curve) and by
Archambault et al. [76] (black dashed curve) over a spectrum spanning from 400 to 2000 nm. The loss
figures are in the range of 50 to 100 dB/m for wavelengths near 800 nm. The graph also shows the
loss spectrum of a ring with the same inner diameter (i.e., 45 μm) and a thickness of 600 nm using
the expression by Archambault et al. [76]. The results show a decrease in the loss figures by over a
factor of 10, reaching ~2 dB/m near 800 nm. Very recently, and following the interest in IC-HCPCF,
the dielectric ring optical waveguiding properties were reexamined by D. Bird [96] and Zeisberger
et al. [95]. The red curve in Figure 21a shows the loss spectrum of the same dielectric ring using
the expression from [95]. The spectrum corroborates the results reported in Reference [76], though a
discrepancy of nearly a factor of 2 is observed. In any case, the found loss values are in the range of 1
to 2 dB/m at ~800 nm regardless of the expression used.
Comparing the CL results of the above antiresonant ring with those found with hypocycloid
core-contour IC-HCPCF with the same core radius and the same silica thickness as the one used for
the ring give values that are ~4 orders of magnitude larger. This is illustrated in the right graph of
Figure 21b, which show the CL spectra for a ring, hypocycloid core-contour Kagome HCPCF and
8-tube tubular HCPCF, respectively. This discrepancy in CL clearly indicates that the ARROW is not
appropriate as a guidance model for IC-HCPCF. In parallel, inspection of the effective index of the
HE11 for the ring using ARROW and the two IC-HPCFs (see lhs of Figure 21b) shows that comparable
dispersion trend for the three fibers. The main difference lies at the resonant wavelengths. Here,
in contrast with the ARROW calculated HE11 effective index, the two IC-HPCF show broader and
multiple resonant wavelengths on the blue-side of the ARROW resonant wavelength. This difference
is also shown in the loss spectra (rhs of Figure 21b), which show broader high loss band and shifted
to the blue. Using the discussion above, this can be explained by the fact that at the blue-side of the
resonant wavelength, the cladding lattice supports silica lattice modes with low azimuthal number
associated with the unity-increase in the radial number, and hence broader and blue-shifted high loss
region compared to the ARROW based spectrum [4].
Conversely, ARROW model was also used to describe large-pitch PBG-guiding PCF because of
their weak dependence on the cladding lattice pitch. As mentioned above, we have seen that PBG
guidance can occur without the requirement of periodicity. This is exemplified with large pitch regime
PCF, such as the one with the high-index isolated inclusion cladding, whereby the cladding-lattice
Bloch modes are represented by Wannier modes. The latter are highly localized in the high index
guiding constituents of the cladding dielectric microstructure. Consequently, and by virtue of the
photonic analog of the tight binding model, the modal spectrum band-structure of the cladding-lattice
is reduced to discrete dispersion curves associated with the individual waveguiding features making
the cladding lattice.
We thus argue that the ARROW picture cannot be considered as a guidance model for
microstructured fiber as it does not give an account of the cladding modal spectrum. The latter
is necessary to identify the coupling dynamics between a fiber core mode and the cladding. We have
seen that in the case of a PBG fiber, the cladding is engineered to support no mode at the frequency
and effective-index of interest, and thus the core mode is bound to be guided by virtue of absence of
any leakage channel. On the other hand, for IC fibers, the cladding is engineered in such that its modal
spectrum is populated within the ne f f − ω region of interest by modes that are highly localized in
the high index material and have a strong transverse symmetry incompatibility with the fiber core
41
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
mode of interest. Such approach stems from the paradigm shift triggered by the work of John and
Yablonovitch [43,44], whereby light dynamics in photonic devices, such as PCF, is explained no longer
by tracing the electromagnetic field path, but by considering the reciprocal space (i.e., Hilbert space of
the relevant photonic states) of its dielectric structure to solve the modal spectrum. Then, a simple
use of well-established rules from condensed matter physics, such as tight binding model or spatial
symmetry of the eigenmodes, confer the necessary conceptual tools for PCF design.
4.5. Core Modal Properties of HCPCF

In the above sections, emphasis was put on the modal spectrum structure and properties of the
HCPCF cladding lattice. In this section, we give a short review on the main modal properties of the
guided core modes in HCPCFs.
The fundamental properties of core modes in HCPCF don’t strongly deviate from those obtained
in fiber optics [69] or hollow dielectric waveguides [50]. As a matter of fact the HCPCF core modes
show comparable propagation constants and transverses profile as those described by Marcatili et al.
for hollow dielectric capillary [50]. Figure 22 summarizes the modes content and transverse profile for
a Kagome IC-HCPCF. Using the linear polarization approximation, we can recognize the fundamental
core mode LP01 (i.e., the linear polarization form of HE11 ) with its largest effective index, and then the
higher order modes following similar order in effective index as with a hollow capillary.
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Figure 22. (a) lhs: Typical core mode profiles of a Kagome IC-HCPCF and their location in the neff -space.
(b) A Kagome HCPCF S2 measured trace and the intensity profiles of the retrieved modes around 1 μm.
The principal difference in the modal structure of HCPCF when compared to conventional optical
fibers resides in the modal and polarization control. For example, in PBG-HCPCF, the mode number is
set by the cladding PBG lowest effective index edge at a given frequency or wavelength. As seen above,
this edge can be controlled to a certain level by adjusting the cladding structure to obtain single mode
fiber. Another strategy to achieve single mode guidance in PBG-HCPCF is to introduce additional
defects in the cladding that are phase-matched with the lowest loss higher order modes. When
judiciously designed, the fiber can exhibit single-mode and polarization-maintaining operation [97].
For IC-HCPCF, the modal and polarization control requires different strategies than PBG fibers.
Because of the intrinsic nature of the light guidance in IC-HCPCF, the notion of cut-off wavelength
below which the fiber core does not support guided modes no longer holds because core modes
co-propagate at the same ne f f with cladding modes (see lhs of Figure 22a). Consequently, the IC-guiding
fiber can support an infinite number of core modes. However, an IC fiber can effectively operate in a
single mode fashion at its lowest loss mode (typically the core fundamental mode) if the other modes
42
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
are sufficiently leaky. Usually, in IC-HCPCF the lowest loss modes are those of LP01 , LP11 , and LP02 .
The latter can exhibit lower loss than LP11 because its field has no azimuthal variation and thus lower
coupling to cladding modes. Figure 22b shows experimental S2 measurements [98] illustrating the
above mentioned properties for a hypocycloid core-contour Kagome HCPCF. Here, the S2 trace shows
a fiber modal content dominated by LP01 , LP11 , and LP02 like modes. Furthermore, within this set of
dominant modes, the light is chiefly in the fundamental core mode with an extinction ratio of ~13 dB
for LP02 and ~26 dB for LP11 .
Another salient feature of IC HCPCF HE11 core mode is its extremely low overlap with the silica
core-surround. The top of Figure 23 shows the profile of HE11 core mode and how its compares to that
of a glass capillary [63]. Figure 23a shows the evolution of HE11 radial profile along two axes when
the negative curvature b is increased whilst keeping the inner radius constant. The result shows that
the mode MFD remains constant and its transverse profile is that of HE11 , regardless of the negative
curvature value. Furthermore, the mode profile is related to the inner radius of the fiber, and the
Kagome IC-HCPF mode profile and propagation constant can be approximated to that of a glass
capillary with a radius equal to the inner radius of the hypocycloid core contour. Figure 23c shows
the relative error of this approximation for different values of b. The results show that the relative
discrepancy is less than 7% (which was found for a b = 1.5).
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Figure 23. (a,b) Evolution of the mode field diameter of IC HCPCF HE11 core mode profile with
negative curvature b. (c) Relative error on MFD when Kagome IC-HCPF is approximated to a glass
capillary with a radius equal to the inner radius of the hypocycloid core contour. (Reprinted with
permission from Reference [63], OSA, 2013.) Experimental bend loss evolution versus bend radius Rb
for (d) 7-cell and (e) 19-cell Kagome HCPCF at 1 μm (black curves) and 2 μm (red curves) (reprinted
with permission from Reference [65], OSA, 2018).
43
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 23d,e shows the bend loss for the case of 7-cell and 19-cell Kagome IC-HCPCF, respectively.
The first fiber has an inner diameter of 57 μm, a silica strut thickness of 840 nm, and b-parameter of
0.75. The 19-cell fiber exhibits an inner core diameter of 119 μm, a silica thickness of 900 nm, and has
b = 0.88. The bend loss was measured at 1 μm (black curve) and at 2 μm (red curve) at the fundamental
and the 1st higher transmission bands, respectively.
4.6. HCPCF Prospects and Future Trends

Despite the field of HCPCF remains a nascent field and timely topic in research and technology, it
is quickly developing in a mature subject both in guided photonics, in the design and fabrication of this
type of fibers, and in its applications in various fields (see below). The performances achieved in the
last 20 years with both PBG-HCPCF and IC-HCPCF were as exciting and insightful as counterintuitive
and changing. Both HCPCFs morphed from an academic curiosity to a transformative and
powerful technology platform in nonlinear optics, lasers, sensing, communications, and higher-power
pulse delivery.
This being said, HCPCFs have not been adopted as extensively as expected. This is very much so
in telecommunications, where HCPCF is yet to represent an alternative to the single mode fiber (SMF).
Indeed, the lowest loss reported for HCPCF is ~1 dB/km, and was achieved with PBG-HCPCF. This
is ~1 order magnitude higher than the SMF state-of-the-art loss figures, and seems to be a hard limit
for PBG-HCPCF, especially when single-mode and polarization-maintaining are required. Indeed,
achieving lower loss implies succeeding the difficult challenge of reducing the frozen thermal surface
fluctuations induced surface roughness.
Within this context, a renewal in the hope of envisioning HCPCF as a future alternative to SMF
is triggered with the progressed made in IC-HCPCF. Today, IC-HCPCF shows comparable loss to
PBG-HCPCF, with losses below 10 dB/km being demonstrated over a large spectral range of the
visible and NIR. Debord et al. [30] identified two possible future trends to further improve on the
performance of IC HCPCF. These trends result from two limiting sources. Today, IC-HCPCF are
surface roughness-limited for short wavelengths (typically shorter than 1 μm), and design-limited
for longer wavelengths. Consequently, improving on the surface roughness-limited fibers implies
lower SSL, and requires a reduction either in the surface roughness or in the optical overlap with the
silica core-surround. Conversely, reducing the transmission loss of the design-limited HCPCF implies
exploring alternative cladding and/or core-contour designs to those of Kagome HCPCF or SR-TL
HCPCF. Among the proposed cladding designs we count nested tubular HCPCF designs [56,57,60]
or double layer tubular cladding [58], which very recently demonstrated a loss figure of as low as
2 dB/km at 1500 nm.
5. HCPCF Applications
The advent of HCPCF has transformed laser–gas-based applications and is continuing to do so.
The driving properties of such a transformative power are summarized in part in Figure 24. These are
the laser–gas interaction ultra-enhancement, the laser power and/or energy handling (Figure 24), and
specific and engineerable dispersion profiles.
The micrometer scale core and the long propagation length offered between the guided light and a
gas phase medium that can be confined in its core permit to reach a very efficient gas–light interaction.
This means that nonlinear phenomena and spectral contrast can be excited with extremely low light
levels. This statement is quantified by the figure of merit FOM = Lint λ/Ae f f , which is proportional to
the ratio between the effective interaction length, Lint , and the modal area, Aeff . Figure 24a shows that
the FOM to be enhanced larger in HCPCF by a factor between 1000 and 1 million relative to the usual
capillaries. The colored regions in Figure 24a show the FOM magnitudes for the different and typical
reported HCPCF. We note that for the same propagation loss, the PBG-HCPCF exhibit higher FOM
because of a smaller fiber-core size than those of IC-HCPCF.
44
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 24. (a) Laser–gas interaction figure of merit evolution with the hollow core diameter for glass
capillary and different HCPCF transmission loss figures. (b) HCPCF-guided laser energy damage
threshold for different types of HCPCF. The star and square symbols are the experimental demonstrated
energy with IC-HCPCF-guided lasers [31,99,100] and PBG-HCPCF [101], respectively.
Figure 24b shows the laser energy damage threshold (LIDT), with laser pulse duration for different
silica-based fibers. The results show that for HCPCF with an optical overlap coefficient of η = 10−6
and a core radius of 60 μm, which are fulfilled with current IC-HCPCF, the energy damage threshold
is theoretically found to be 1 J for laser pulses of 100 fs and 100 J for pulses of 10 ns. The exceptionally
low optical overlap in IC-HCPCF makes this type of fiber as an outstanding candidate for laser
power/energy handling and for high field optics and photonics. The star symbols are the laser energies
reported to be guided by IC-HCPCF. PBG-HCPCFs are represented by the configuration of η = 10−2
and core radius of 5 μm. Here, the LIDT is around 10 μJ for sub-picosecond laser pulses. An example
of an experimental demonstration using PBG-HCPCF is shown as a square symbol in the figure. This
lower PBG-HCPCF’s LIDT relative to IC-HCPCF is due first to the high optical overlap with silica
in PBG-HCPCF and secondly to the smaller core size. Having said that both types of HCPCF show
higher energy damage threshold than 5 μm core radius silica-core optical fiber with USP laser energy
damage threshold of 1 μJ.
Below, we review a nonexhaustive list of experimental results in different fields, where the
above properties, along with the dispersion, played driving roles in harnessing gases and light under
surprisingly extreme regimes.
5.1. Non Linear Optics

In the field of nonlinear optics, gas-filled HCPCF proved to be an outstanding platform in
transporting extremely energetic pulses, in pulse compression, and in generating extremely broad
spectra with both very low light levels and with high laser pulse powers and energies.
5.1.1. High-Power Laser Beam Delivery

The HCPCF technology was a timely innovation for laser beam delivery, particularly for ultrashort
pulse (USP) lasers. Indeed, the advent of the USP laser technology demonstrating high peak power
and intensities of up to PW/cm2 , combined with pulse durations down to 200 fs calls for a fiber
beam delivery that can handle this power and/or energy without distortion to the pulse spectral
and temporal integrity. This need is becoming pressing with the growing and varied applications
that are adopting USP lasers as a tool, and which span from laser surgery to surface marking and
micromachining to mention a few.
Within this context, the PBG-HCPCF rapidly showed its inability to sustain such an intense pulse
laser. The strong optical power overlap with the silica cladding (1–0.1%) implies a too low LIDT (see
Figure 24b), and hence disqualifies this fiber family as an efficient mean for the intense USP delivery.
45
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Among the reported work on PBG-HCPCF-based laser beam delivery, we count the report in 2007 of
the delivery of 0.5 mJ energy and 65 ns duration pulses from of Nd:YAG laser through a 2m long 7cell
fiber with 8 μm diameter [102]. Two years later, transportation of 1 mJ energy and 10 ns duration pulses
has been demonstrated with a transmission coefficient of 82% in a 8 mm long 19-cell PBG-HCPCF with
a core diameter of 15 μm [103].
Conversely, the very low optical power overlap with silica offered by IC-PCFs (10−4 –10−6 , see
Figure 15d) and their larger core diameters allowed a breakthrough in USP beam delivery applications.
Moreover, due to its broadband guidance, different spectral wavelengths have been targeted going
from UV to mid-IR range. The conventional hexagonal core contour of Kagome HCPCF demonstrated
guidance of fs laser beam of tens of μJ [11], and 1064 nm pulses up to 10 mJ for 9 ns pulse duration [100]
leading to demonstration of gas ignition at the output of the HC fiber. An important milestone has been
achieved in 2013 through the use of the hypocycloidal design that permits to drop further the optical
overlap with the silica down to ppm level. The exceptional power of IC-HCPCF for ultra-energetic
USP laser beam delivery was first shown with the demonstration of the transport of 600 femtosecond
pulses at millijoule energy level of a 1030 nm emitting Yb-laser in robustly single-mode fashion using
a 10 m-long piece of a IC Kagome HCPCF [31]. The energy record in term of launched energy for
fs-lasers in a HCPCF is to date 2.6 mJ in a Kagome lattice HCPCF that has been designed to get a large
core size of 100 μm [99]. One can notice that these fibers can be the host for transport of very high
average powers of CW lasers. In fact, the delivery of 1 kW has been demonstrated with an impressive
transmission coefficient of 90% with an excellent output beam quality defined by a M2 of 1.1 [104].
Subsequently, much effort has been made to develop efficient fibers for covering most of the industrial
lasers. For example, delivery of thulium-doped fiber laser technology at 2 μm (important wavelength
range for spectroscopic applications, material processing of for High harmonic generation) has been
addressed with transmission of 40–50 W of average power in a nanosecond [105] or femtosecond
regime [106]. The green spectral range has been covered with a Kagome HCPCF, demonstrating
delivery of 532 nm 10 W average power frequency-doubled Yb-fiber picosecond laser [64], and a with
a tubular amorphous lattice HCPCF demonstrating delivery of 0.57 mJ and 55 ns pulses and 30 μJ
and 6 ps pulses [107]. For shorter wavelengths, UV guidance has been reported with the launching of
15 mW of 280 nm CW laser with a hexagonal-core Kagome fiber with a transmission coefficient of 50%
without appearance of UV induced damage over 14 h [108]. Recently, the SR-TL HCPCFs shows its
capabilities with the delivering at 355 nm of 20 ps 160 μJ pulses thanks to a fiber exhibiting 130 dB/km
loss level [91].
So far, laser beam delivery of micro- or millijoule through HCPCFs has been used for several
demonstrations of glass micromachining [17], metal machining [109], laser ignition [100,110], or also
tissue ablation [111,112] to mention a few. Figure 25 illustrates these different applications.
Figure 25. Illustrations of different applications of HCPCF fiber laser beam delivery, with (a) glass
engraving ((reprinted with permission from Reference [17], OSA, 2013), (b) titanium micromachining
(reprinted with permission from Reference [107], OSA, 2015), and (c) tissue surface ablation (reprinted
with permission from Reference [111], OSA, 2016).
46
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
5.1.2. Pulse Compression

A large number of nonlinear optical applications require laser pulse widths that are much
shorter than what is possible with today’s high-power USP such as those of Yb-based materials [113].
An example of these applications is High Harmonic Generation (HHG) where few-cycle intense pulses
are desired to reach high conversion efficiency and high photon energy cut-off. In the previous section,
we have seen that the successful laser beam delivery of high energy ultrashort pulses in different
spectral ranges using IC-HCPCF relies chiefly on the small optical overlap of the guided mode with
silica. The pulse compression, on the other hand, relies on the gas-filled IC-HCPCF specific and
controllable dispersion spectral profile. Thanks to a dispersion spectrum exhibiting both normal
and anomalous regimes, dispersion values that are relatively low, and ultralow propagation loss,
IC-HCPFS are particularly efficient in spectral broadening and pulse compression of such intense
pulses. The many reported results demonstrated the stronger impact of this fiber-technology compared
to the well-established technique gas filled capillaries to compress several millijoule USP. The latter
technique presents the drawback of being limited to high energy pulses because of the high propagation
loss of capillary, and of being physically cumbersome as the capillary is not bendable and must be
stretched to avoid higher transmission loss. On the other hand, IC-HCPCF offers the best of two
worlds: pulse compression over a large energy dynamic range and ease of use and integration.
One can distinguish mainly two types of compression schemes employed with the HCPCF
technology. The first one exploiting the normal dispersion regime of the gas filled system is based
on Self Phase Modulation (SPM) effect of the spectrum leading to spectral broadening. Pulse
compression is then achieved by postcompression with dispersion compensation thanks to chirped
optics. The second technique takes advantage of the IC-HCPCF low and anomalous dispersion to
excite solitonic dynamics whereby pulse self-compression can take place.
Table 1 summarizes the most notable and representative intense pulse compression results
obtained with both techniques, for various wavelengths and temporal domains. Among these
compression results, one can notice the subcycle pulse generation by compression of 1.8 μm 80 fs pulses
down to 4.5 fs in a Xenon filled 82 μm core HCPCF (20 cm long) with a self-compression dynamic [16].
To date, it represents the strongest compression ratio in self-compression regime with a value of 17
that has been achieved using HCPCF technology.
Table 1. Representative pulse compression performances in HCPCF technology.
Input Output
Compression Input/Output Compression
Reference Wavelength Pulse Pulse Filling Gas
Scheme Energy Factor
Duration Duration
Mak et al. [114] 790 nm Postcompression 10.3 μJ 103 fs 12.6 fs ~8 Krypton
Mak et al. [114] 790 nm Self-compression 6.6 μJ 24 fs 6.8 fs ~3.5 Krypton
Hädrich et al. [106] 1030 nm Postcompression 9 μJ 250 fs 30 fs ~8.3 Krypton
Guichard et al. [115] 1030 nm Postcompression 70 μJ 330 fs 34 fs ~9.7 Ambiant air
Debord et al. [31] 1030 nm Self-compression 450 μJ 600 fs 49 fs ~12 Ambiant air
Emaury et al. [116] 1030 nm Postcompression 1.95 μJ 860 fs 48 fs ~17.9 Xenon
Balciunas et al. [16] 1080 nm Self-compression 35 μJ 80 fs 4.5 fs ~17 Xenon
Wang et al. [61] 1500 nm Self-compression 105 μJ 850 fs 300 fs ~2.8 Ambiant air
Gebhardt et al. [117] 1820 nm Self-compression 41 μJ/34.4 μJ 110 fs 14 fs ~7.8 Argon
Murari et al. [118] 2050 nm Postcompression 227 μJ 1.8 ps 285 fs ~6.3 Argon
In the above, most of the reported pulse compressions were achieved using gas-filled HCPCF.
This technique necessitates the cumbersome use of gas cells and gas pressure control. An ideal set-up
scheme is the use the HCPCF in its simplest form, meaning the fiber core is filled with air at atmospheric
pressure. In this context, compression of 330 fs/70 μJ pulses at 1030 nm down to 34 fs has then been
demonstrated by Guichard et al. with a transmission efficiency of 70% in a 1.2-m-long piece of air-filled
Kagome fiber [115]. This compression has been achieved by postcompression of a spectrum that has
been broadened over 90 nm (at −10 dB). Self-compression of more intense 600 fs has been reported
with a minimum pulse duration of 49 fs at the output of a 3 m-long piece of a 19 cell Kagome HCPCF
exposed to ambient air for an input energy of 450 μJ [31].
47
Fibers 2019, 7, 16
5.1.3. Raman Comb Generation

The first demonstration of nonlinear optics in HCPCF was achieved in 2002 by Benabid et al. [46],
via the generation of Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) in hydrogen-filled Kagome HCPCF pumped
by 532 nm nanosecond pulses with conversion efficiency of ~30% on vibrational Stokes and anti-Stokes.
Two years later, the same phenomenon was demonstrated with pure rotational resonance using
hydrogen-filled PBG-HCPF excited at 1064 nm with an impressive higher conversion efficiency of
92% from the pump to the first rotational Stokes [119]. These results have been seminal to several
demonstration based on SRS in HCPCF. For example, the first multi-octave Raman comb demonstrated
in HCPCF has been reported in 2007 where nanosecond pulse-pumped hydrogen-generated Raman
lines from 325 to 2300 nm by virtue of the broadband guidance offered by IC-HCPCF [4]. Also, in
the same year, the same group reported on the observation of continuous-wave rotational SRS with
a conversion efficiency of 99.99% to the first rotational Stokes [9]. Finally, in Wang et al. [120], the
same team experimentally and theoretically demonstrated that within the single pump pulse and the
spectral components of the comb reported in Reference [4] are phase coherent. This coherence results
from the transient nature of the SRS, and is stronger when the pump pulse is narrower and the fiber is
closer to single mode.
Multi-octave coherent comb generation are of great interest for optical waveform synthesis via
Fourier synthesis and attosecond pulse generation for attoscience applications. Also, the generation of
this large comb in the CW regime represents a very promising milestone for the advent of the optical
analog of the electronic function generator.
Among the follow up results in the generation of several octave Raman comb, we can list the
generation via transient SRS of over five octaves wide Raman combs in hydrogen-filled IC HCPCF
pumped with a 27 picosecond laser at 22.7 W [10]. The Raman lines span from 321 nm to 12.5 μm
(24–933 THz) with an output average power of 10 W (Figure 26). The use of a narrower pump
pulse than the nanosecond pulses previously used enables stronger temporal filtering of the excited
spatio-temporal modes duration the Raman generation, and thus ensuring a single wavepacket to
be Raman-amplified from the quantum noise, and thus to generate more intrapulse coherent comb.
Figure 26 shows the two output generated Raman combs optimized for vibrational emission (through
linear polarization) and for rotational lines emission (with circular excitation polarization).
In parallel, the generation of dense Raman comb has been demonstrated by exciting with a 532 nm
nanosecond laser a HCPCF filled with a gas mixture of H2 , D2 , and Xe [121]. With an input beam of
5 μJ of energy, 135 rovibrational Raman lines spaced by 2.2 THz have been measured from 280 nm to
1 μm. Finally, the generation of Raman comb in hydrogen-filled HCPCF has been for the first time
used experimentally for a periodic train pulse waveform synthesis of 26 fs pulses duration with a
frequency of 17.6 THz thanks to phase-locked Raman sidebands [122].
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Figure 26. (a,b) Optical spectrum (a) and its associated diffracted output beam picture (b) generated
with pump linear polarization. (c,d) same as (a,b) for pump circular polarization of a large optical
Raman comb in H2 IC HCPCF (reprinted with permission from Reference [10], OSA, 2015).
5.1.4. Supercontinuum Generation

Similarly to solid-core PCFs, many results have been carried out to generate supercontinuum
in gas-filled HCPCF [123]. Thanks to the combination of high peak power and energy levels offered
by the new generation of USP lasers and to the large FOM, one can even generate, with a low
nonlinear medium such as ambient air with a nonlinear coefficient of ~5 × 10−19 cm2 /W, strong
optical nonlinearities. This has been exemplified by the demonstration of nonlinear optical effects
in air-filled IC HCPCF [13]. In fact, Debord et al. reported on the experimental demonstration of a
very high energetic Raman comb based on excitation of N2 of the ambient air in the fiber [13]. This
has been obtained in a 3 m-long piece of Kagome HCPCF excited by 300 ps pulses with energy up to
1.3 mJ and an output efficiency of 75%. The generated N2 Raman lines covers a large spectrum range
of 300 THz between 600 and 1375 nm with five vibrational resonances spaced by 70 THz. By switching
to shorter pulses of 600 fs, the dynamics have been completely modified to end up with the generation
of a broad supercontinuum that spreads from 375 to 1500 nm with a transmission coefficient of 30%.
It corresponds to a record energy spectral density of 150 nJ/nm.
Figure 27 summarizes the evolution of the input energy of the two spectra recorded at the output
for the different temporal excitation regimes. The theory shows that this generation involves four-wave
mixing, third harmonic generation, and soliton formation.
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Figure 27. (a) Raman comb and (b) supercontinuum spectrum measured at the output of IC ambient
air-filled IC HCPCF excited with millijoule 300 ps and 600 fs, respectively. (c) Dispersed-fiber output
spectrum (reprinted with permission from Reference [13], OSA, 2015).
5.2. Plasma Photonics
5.2.1. Wave-Induced Plasma

In 2013, plasma-core PCF was reported [27], extending the gas phase materials that have been
successfully loaded into HCPCF to ionized gases. The interest of confining the fourth state of matter is
strong and represents a unique material for photonics because it is the only state of matter that can
emit directly in the UV spectral domain. The confinement of such a phase in the HCPCF technology
can be useful in building new generation of UV-DUV fiber gas laser.
Different attempts have been carried out to ignite gas discharges in hollow-core waveguides.
The primary technique used was based on high-voltage DC discharge using two electrodes at both
ends of the gas discharge tube [124]. Several limits are inherent to this ignition technique if one wants
to target excitation in small core tubes with a limit around 150 μm of core diameter. In fact, important
high voltage values are required to reach the ignition threshold due to important charge accumulations
close to the core walls and on the electrodes implying instability of the plasma discharge. In fact, no
successful discharges based on the CW excitation technique have been reported in a proper waveguide
such as HCPCF. In order to mitigate this charge accumulation, the RF field is combined with DC
excitation. In 1975, a new plasma ignition technique emerged based on the resonant microwave cavity
using a specific coupler, named “Surfatron” [125]. It consists of a cylindrical microwave resonant
cavity exhibiting a gap, where the field is strong enough so the coupled energy to the gas filling the
hollow-core creates a discharge. This technique exhibits the advantage of being nonintrusive as the
microwave excitation is applied on side of the fiber.
The Surfatron excitation scheme was successfully applied to the HCPCF in 2013 (see Figure 28a).
For the first time, a stable 6 mbar argon plasma column sustained in a 100 μm core diameter IC
HCPCF-based on Kagome lattice has been reported, with no damage to the fiber structural integrity.
The plasma column length reached 4 cm for an incident microwave power of 30 W at 2.45 GHz.
Figure 28b shows a transverse picture of the plasma column. The originality of this excitation relies on
the fact that the plasma is created and maintained by a surface wave that propagates at the interface
between the plasma core and the glass core contour in a self-consistent configuration where the surface
wave creates the plasma, and in turn the formed plasma acts as a guiding medium for the surface
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
wave itself. This surface wave transfers its power to neutral particles during propagation, and at a
certain distance when the power becomes (or electronic density) too low the plasma column is stopped.
The relatively low gas pressure used allows a stronger emission of the Ar atoms in the UV domain
thanks to Ar+ ions excitation.
An efficient guidance of the generated Ar lines has been demonstrated at the output of a 20 cm
long piece of the HCPCF, and the guided spectrum shows strong emission in the 350–550 nm
spectral range (see Figure 28c). The experimental study reveals that the gas temperature was
around 1300 K at the coupling zone. The achieved ionization rate reached the impressive levels
of ~10−2 , corresponding to an electron density level of ~5 × 1014 cm−3 at ~1 mbar pressures and
microwave power density of ~0.1 MW cm−3 . A theoretical study has been undertaken to give a
clear explanation on the plasma processes involved that can explain this unusual plasma column
excitation and confinement [126]. Particularly, the theoretical model enabled us to understand the
counterintuitive situation of high-power densities and electron densities combined with the relatively
moderate gas temperature (but strong enough to potentially starts softening the silica). The HCPCF
confined plasma dynamic shows a strong ion acceleration, and thus an ionic mean free path which is
larger than the core size of the fiber explaining the combination of the moderate increase of the gas
temperature, and the large ionization rate.
D F
E G
Figure 28. (a) Schematic representation of plasma column generation in HCPCF with a surfatron.
(b) Side view picture of the generated 4-cm-long plasma column. (c) Measured spectrum lines
at fiber output (reprinted with permission from Reference [27], OSA, 2013). (d) New microstrip
split-ring resonator (MSRR) plasma column excitatory (reprinted with permission from Reference [127],
OSA, 2016).
Later, a more compact microwave excitation scheme was reported [127]. It is based on the similar
surface wave generation but a microstrip split-ring resonator (MSRR) was used as an alternative to the
much large surfatron. Figure 28d shows the excitation of a plasma column of 2 cm with the use of a
fabricated MSRR.
In order to enhance the emission of the plasma in the UV domain and to reach the DUV, gas
mixtures have been more recently employed by using particularly the ternary mixture Ar-N2 -O2 [128].
This has led to the demonstration of a tunable DUV source with the emission of fluorescence and
several guided lines in the 200–450 nm wavelength range.
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5.2.2. Photo-Induced Plasma

It is common today to have USP lasers emitting peak power of several GW. This corresponds
to intensities in the range of several PW/cm2 when the laser beam is coupled into HCPCF. Such
an intensity level well surpasses the ionization threshold of most gases. Therefore, in HCPCF this
phenomenon appears for lower laser average power values than the one required in simple capillaries
in high field domain. This ionization process is intrinsically linked to a loss decrease [129,130].
The effect of this ionization regime has been both theoretically and experimentally studied in
gas-filled HCPCF. One can distinguish two different induced effects. The first one is an induced
blue-shift effect in the spectrum. The second is an impact on the emission of a resonant dispersive
wave [129] in the deep-UV or mid-IR spectral ranges [131,132].
The free electrons directly impact the refractive index and induce a decrease of its value in the
time domain and thus a self-steepening of the pulse. Spectrally, one can observe blue-shifting contrary
to the Raman self-shifting in conventional fibers. Due to a longer time in the recombination of the
electrons, the change in refractive index is still maintained for ultrafast pulses. The loss drop due to the
photo-ionization implies a decrease of the pulse intensity and thus limiting progress of the blue-shift.
Hölzer et al. illustrated this phenomenon experimentally with the propagation in a Kagome fiber of
800 nm pulses of 9 μJ and 65 fs [133]. Good agreement has been obtained between experiments and
numerical simulations when an ionization term is taken into account in the model in term of spectral
evolution and also in the energy losses. Further, the theoretical explanations of this blue-shift effect
have been deeply developed in References [130,134].
Phase matching conditions can be obtained between a soliton pulse with a wavelength in the
anomalous dispersion regime close to the zero-dispersion wavelength and a resonant dispersive
wave in the normal dispersion regime. Various experiments results reported on the generation
of UV radiation with the use of this resonance effect [129,135] and on the build of a tunable UV
ultrashort pulse source in Ar-filled HCPCF for example [136,137]. The ionization phenomenon both
experimentally and theoretically has revealed a role in the enhancement of the generation of the UV
resonant emission.
5.3. Atom and Molecular Optics
5.3.1. Atom Optics

Atom optics in confined nano- and microstructured devices are becoming a timely topic.
The pursuit of miniaturizing atom based functionalities such as frequency references, atomic clocks
and quantum sensors is motivated by transferring the outstanding performances in frequency control
and coherent optics achieved in laboratory environments to a broader community of users through the
development of compact, friendly-user, and stand-alone atom devices. Among the atom devices that
have been or are being developed, we cite HCPCF and its gas-filled form the photonic microcell (PMC).
The latter outstands with its long interaction length and small modal area, making it thus an efficient
platform to enhance gas–laser nonlinear interaction and/or absorption contrast by several orders of
magnitude relative to free-space configurations. In this context, in 2006, vapor confined HCPCFs were
first reported using Rubidium (Rb) [20,138]. In these seminal works, electromagnetically induced
transparency (EIT) generation was demonstrated with a light-level as low as nanowatt power, which
represents more than a 1000-fold reduction from the power required in bulk cell. The postprocessing
of HCPCF by coating the inner core with specific materials to assess the atom surface dynamics and to
reduce the physiochemical adsorption effects is one of the current challenges to improve the alkali
vapor PMC performances and to anticipate the avenue of quantum devices based on it [139].
With respect to cold atom manipulation inside HCPCF, rapid progress was made in the last
few years despite the experimental difficulties that loading cold atoms inside a micrometer scaled
hollow-core entails. The first work on loading cold atoms inside a HCPCF was reported in 2009 by
Bajcsy et al. where they demonstrated an optical switch [140,141]. A second work [142] concluded
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
that the long-distance transportation of atoms is feasible which would be a route to guided matter
wave interferometry, large-area Sagnac-type interferometers. Other works have recently involved
loading Rydberg cold trapped atoms into the core of PBG fibers [21,143]. Finally, another seminal
demonstration was motivated to explore quantum metrology and optical atomic clocks, and was
reported in Reference [29]. Here, by designing an IC Kagome HCPCF with a sufficiently large core
diameter (34 μm) and low residual birefringence, cold 88 Sr atoms from Magneto-optical trap (MOT)
(see Figure 29) were successfully loaded into fiber by using optical lattice whose potential depth was
30 μK, whilst keeping the atoms trapped within the wells of an optical lattice. The main result of this
work is the demonstration of an absorption line whose linewidth is set by the lifetime of the excited
state instead of atom-wall collisional dephasing as one would expect given the microconfinement of
the atoms.
Figure 29. (a) Atoms in the HCPCF radially- and axially-confined by the optical lattice, preventing
atoms from interacting with the fiber-wall (top). Microscope image of the Kagome fiber and Far-field
pattern of the laser intensity passed through a 32-mm-long HCPCF (bottom). (b) Absorption spectra
with and without atomic expansion over lattice sites, as illustrated in the inset, are displayed by blue
and red symbols, respectively, corresponding to a mean atom occupation of m = 0.45 and m = 1.7
(Reprinted and adapted with permission from Reference [29], Nature, 2014).
5.3.2. Novel Stimulated Raman Scattering Configuration

Recently, an exotic configuration of SRS in H2 -filled PBG HCPCF was reported [28], which has
the potential of offering both an alternative means for light control and trapping of molecules and
for developing high-power and narrow linewidth exotic light sources. This configuration relies on a
powerful CW excitation of hydrogen-filled PBG-HCPCF and the generation of forward and backward
Stokes radiation. Here, molecular hydrogen is optically self-nanostructured into a periodic lattice
whereby the Raman-active molecules are trapped within an array of potential wells with a nanometric
width and a depth as high as 55 THz. Such a nanolocalization of the Raman-active molecules created
a new Lamb–Dicke regime of SRS. The results and the theoretical model show an unconventional
Stokes radiation with sub-recoil linewidth of ~3 kHz (four orders of magnitude lower than Doppler
linewidth) (see Figure 30), and a rich spectral structure, which includes Rabi splitting sidebands,
molecular motional sidebands, and inter-sideband four wave mixing. Finally, the results show a novel
molecular acceleration.
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
Figure 30. (a) Illustration of the molecular trapping experiment. (b) Stokes spectrum. (c) Moving
scatter along the set fiber snapshot (reprinted with permission from Reference [28], Nature, 2016).
5.4. Quantum Information

One of the main driving subjects in the field of quantum information is the generation of
single photon and/or entangled photon multiple sources. Among the recent avenues to generate
such nonclassical photon sources are those based on spectrally-entangled photon generation. Here,
promising progress in developing photonic devices that enable tuning photon pair phase-matched
frequencies was demonstrated using photonic chip [144]. Within this context, recent results exploiting
the gas-filled IC-HCPCF’s dispersion spectral profile and its strong nonlinearity show that IC-HCPCF
is an excellent platform to both generate and engineer spectrally-entangled photon pairs [145–147].
In order explain how the IC-HCPCF properties are relevant to spectrally-correlated photon-pair
generation, we recall that the frequency correlation between signal and idler photon pair is described
by the joint spectral amplitude function (JSA), which can be approximated as the product of the energy
conservation function α(ωs, ωi) and the phase matching function ϕ(ωs, ωi):F (ωs, ωi) ≈ α(ωs, ωi)
ϕ(ωs, ωi). The profile of the JSA is a direct signature of the correlation nature between the photons of
the photon pair; from separable pairs, which can be used for heralded single photon source, to entangle
for quantum cryptography. The JSA profile can be engineered by either shaping the spectral/temporal
form of the pump or by tuning the phase-matching of the generated single and idler.
In the work reported in Reference [148], the JSA was adjusted by chirp tuning of pump pulses and
change of gas nature and pressure. Conversely, Cordier et al. [146] exploited the multidispersion band
host to tune photon pair time-frequency correlations. Here, thanks to the IC HCPCFs dispersion profile
made of different dispersion band with several zero dispersion wavelengths and S-shape curves, the
authors demonstrated theoretically and experimentally the generation of photon pair with controllable
joint spectral intensity (JSI = |JSA|2 ), corresponding to different photon correlation. The photon
pair was generated via FWM in different phase matching conditions using gas-filled IC-HCPCF with
controllable dispersion and optical nonlinearity. The possibility is offered in such IC gas-filled fibers to
position the pump, signal and idler photons in different transmission bands (as shown in Figure 31b).
Several JSIs have been produced with different degrees of photons entanglement, and with an active
control on the JSI by playing on gas pressure change [147]. In the results presented in Figure 31, the
fiber exhibits strut thickness of 600 nm, core radius of 20 μm. The pump wavelength is fixed at 1030 nm
and the seed laser is tunable around 1550 nm.
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
;ĂͿ ;ďͿ
;ĐͿ
Figure 31. (a) SEM image of the 8 tubes IC fiber cross-section used for JSI experiments. (b) Calculated
fundamental mode effective index and inverse group velocity in an 8 tubes IC fiber filled with 3-bar
Xenon. Two specific four-wave-mixing configurations are identified with respectively the fulfillment of
β1 (ω p ) = β1 (ω s ) and 2β1 (ω p ) = β1 (ω s ) + β1 (ω i ). (a–d) Simulated and (e) experimental JSI for different
lengths, gas pressures, and pump wavelengths (reprinted with permission from Reference [146],
OSA, 2018).
6. Conclusions and Future Trends

To conclude, we reviewed the recent advances in the design, fabrication, and application of
hollow-core photonic crystal fibers by bringing to light a unique synergetic relationship between the
fundamental ingredients in the rise of HCPCF-based “gas-photonics”, which are glass, gas, and light.
Using notions from solid-state physics, we have given the underlying physical principles of
the fiber’s optical guidance mechanisms of the Photonic BandGap and the Inhibited Coupling.
We emphasized the role of the modal spectrum of the fiber cladding structure in defining the HCPCF
guidance properties. We have shown how an appropriate geometric glass structure of a fiber can
structure the fiber modal spectrum. We gave a historical account to show how concepts of atomic
physics and solid-state physics, such as tight-binding model or bound-state in a continuum, have been
exploited in fiber–photonics to develop double photonic-bandgap HCPCF or hypocycloid core-contour
(i.e., negative curvature core-contour) fibers. We listed the evolution of the dramatic drop of the
attenuation in HCPCF that followed the introduction of the hypocycloid core-contour, along with the
future prospect in fiber photonics that can be achieved with IC-HCPCF.
We finished the review by giving some examples of the results obtained in varied fields using
HCPCF and its gas-filled form PMC. These include high energy ultrafast beam delivery, pulse
compression with values down to the single-cycle regime, multi-octave fiber-based light sources
based on stimulated Raman scattering, supercontinuum generation gases, UV-DUV radiation sources
via by plasma generation, gas phase nanostructuring and molecular trapping, and finally, nonclassical
light generation.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, F.B.; Methodology, F.B.; Validation, F.B. and B.D.; Formal Analysis, F.B
and B.D..; Investigation, F.B., B.D., F.G., F.A., L.V.; Resources, B.D., F.A., F.G., L.V., F.B.; Data Curation, B.D., F.A.,
F.G., L.V., F.B.; Writing-Original Draft Preparation, F.B., B.D.; Writing-Review & Editing, B.D., F.A., F.G., L.V., F.B.;
Supervision, F.B.; Project Administration, F.B.
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Fibers 2019, 7, 16
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142. Vorrath, S.; Möller, S.A.; Windpassinger, P.; Bongs, K.; Sengstock, K. Efficient guiding of cold atoms through
a photonic band gap fiber. New J. Phys. 2010, 12, 123015. [CrossRef]
143. Langbecker, M.; Noaman, M.; Kjaergaard, N.; Benabid, F.; Windpassinger, P. Rydberg excitation of cold
atoms inside a hollow-core fiber. Phys. Rev. A 2017, 96, 41402. [CrossRef]
144. Kumar, R.; Ong, J.R.; Savanier, M.; Mookherjea, S. Controlling the spectrum of photons generated on a silicon
nanophotonic chip. Nat. Commun. 2014, 5, 5489. [CrossRef]
145. Ortiz-Ricardo, E.; Bertoni-Ocampo, C.; Ibarra-Borja, Z.; Ramirez-Alarcon, R.; Cruz-Delgado, D.;
Cruz-Ramirez, H.; Garay-Palmett, K.; U’Ren, A.B. Spectral tunability of two-photon states generated by
spontaneous four-wave mixing: Fibre tapering, temperature variation and longitudinal stress. Quantum Sci.
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146. Cordier, M.; Orieux, A.; Debord, B.; Gérome, F.; Gorse, A.; Chafer, M.; Diamanti, E.; Delaye, P.; Benabid, F.;
Zaquine, I. Shaping photon-pairs time-frequency correlations in inhibited-coupling hollow-core fibers.
In Proceedings of the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, San Jose, CA, USA, 13–18 May 2018.
147. Cordier, M.; Orieux, A.; Debord, B.; Gérome, F.; Gorse, A.; Chafer, M.; Diamanti, E.; Delaye, P.; Benabid, F.;
Zaquine, I. Active engineering of four-wave mixing spectral entanglement in hollow-core fibers. ArXiv, 2018;
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© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
62
fibers
Review
Revolver Hollow Core Optical Fibers
Igor A. Bufetov, Alexey F. Kosolapov *, Andrey D. Pryamikov, Alexey V. Gladyshev,
Anton N. Kolyadin, Alexander A. Krylov, Yury P. Yatsenko and Alexander S. Biriukov
Fiber Optics Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119333, Russia; iabuf@fo.gpi.ru(I.A.B.);
pryamikov@fo.gpi.ru (A.D.P.); alexglad@fo.gpi.ru (A.V.G.); kolyadin@fo.gpi.ru (A.N.K.);
krylov@fo.gpi.ru (A.A.K.); yuriya@fo.gpi.ru (Y.P.Y.); biriukov@fo.gpi.ru (A.S.B.)
* Correspondence: kaf@fo.gpi.ru; Tel.: +7-499-503-8207
Received: 15 May 2018; Accepted: 5 June 2018; Published: 7 June 2018
Abstract: Revolver optical fibers (RF) are special type of hollow-core optical fibers with negative
curvature of the core-cladding boundary and with cladding that is formed by a one ring layer
of capillaries. The physical mechanisms contributing to the waveguiding parameters of RFs are
discussed. The optical properties and possible applications of RFs are reviewed. Special attention is
paid to the mid-IR hydrogen Raman lasers that are based on RFs and generating in the wavelength
region from 2.9 to 4.4 μm.
Keywords: hollow-core fibers; Raman lasers; negative curvature fibers; microstructured optical fibers
1. Introduction
Revolver fibers (RF), which are a special type of hollow-core fibers (HCF), were proposed and
experimentally realized for the first time in FORC RAS in 2011 [1]. Since then, various RF designs
have been demonstrated (Figure 1a–c). The key concept behind RFs is the negative curvature of the
core-cladding interface. For the first time, this concept was introduced in [1]; where it was clearly
shown that it is negative curvature that reduces the optical losses in the HCF significantly.
The importance of this concept was highlighted by authors [1] who initially suggested referring
to such fibers as negative-curvature hollow-core fibers (NC HCF). Later, the abbreviation “NC
HCF” became also to be applied to other fiber designs, such as Kagome HCFs with hypocycloid
core-cladding boundary [2], and HCFs with “ice-cream-cone” shaped cladding [3]. However, RFs
should be distinguished among other types of NC HCFs, because (1) the RFs provide an extremely
low overlap of the optical mode with the cladding material and (2) RFs have very simple design of the
cladding, which is based on a single layer of cylindrical or elliptical capillaries, and this fact enables
new possibilities to optimize the fiber performance [4]. The design simplicity makes RFs a new starting
point for the further development of low loss HCFs (Figure 1a–c). To distinguish such fibers from other
NC HCFs, a separate name “revolver fibers” was proposed in [5].
It should be noted that RF scarcely could be attributed to photonic crystal fibers (PCF). The key
feature of PCFs is the structure of fiber cladding that can be described as some unit cell linearly
translated with some period in two dimensions of the fiber cross section. This complex structured
cladding defines optical bandgaps, which correspond to the transmission spectral bands of the PCF,
and thus, governs the optical properties of fiber. Alternatively, the cladding of RFs is not structured
as a crystal. The optical properties of RFs are defined by reflection of light on the elements of the
core-cladding interface only.

Fibers 2018, 6, 39
Figure 1. Cross section images of revolver fibers (RF): (a) RF with single touching capillaries in the
cladding [1]; (b) RF with single non-touching capillaries in the cladding [4]; (c) RF with double nested
non-touching capillaries [6]; and, (d) The family of hollow-core optical fibers with negative curvature
of the core boundary [7].
This fact was confirmed by numerical simulations in many works (see, e.g., [8]). So, it seems not
appropriate to refer RF as PCFs.
This review is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the general properties of RFs by simple
analytical models. In Section 3, the properties of experimentally realized RFs are reviewed and
supported by numerical simulations. Section 4 is devoted to a fabrication technology of the revolver
fibers. Then, some applications of the RFs are discussed in Section 5, which reviews the recent advances
in mid-infrared Raman lasers based on gas-filled revolver fibers, and in Section 6, where short pulse
propagation in air-filled RFs is considered.
2. Physical Demonstrative Approach to the Waveguiding Properties of RF

Unlike PCFs that use the phenomenon of the energy band gaps formation to limit the propagation
of light in a direction perpendicular to the axis of the fiber, the waveguiding properties of RFs are
due to the reflection of radiation from structures that are located at the core-cladding interface. This
interface influences the optical properties of RFs by means of many interrelated geometrical parameters,
such as diameter of the hollow core, the shape and number of capillaries in the cladding, capillary
diameter and wall thickness, etc. Usually, the effects of all geometrical parameters are precisely taken
into account via time consuming numerical simulations (see, e.g., recent extensive review [9] and
references therein). This Section, however, highlights the fact that general waveguiding properties of
revolver fibers can be understood on the basis of simple analytical models using a kind of method of
successive approximations.
As an initial approximation to RF, one can take the simplest model of optical waveguide in the
form of an opening in a dielectric (its scheme is depicted in Figure 2a). Such hollow waveguide
(HW) was considered in detail in [10]. In this case, the Fresnel reflection from the surface separating
the hollow core with the dielectric determines the optical loss level of this fiber (Figure 2d, line 1).
It is possible to significantly reduce the optical losses of such a fiber by increasing the reflection
coefficient from the core-cladding interface e.g., by reflection from two surfaces, using as a waveguide,
a capillary with a thin glass wall (tube waveguide—TW) and constructive interference of radiation
that is reflected from both surfaces of the capillary. Such a fiber was considered in [11], and it can
be taken as a second approximation to RF (model TW). In this case, the capillary wall serves as a
Fabry-Perot interferometer, the transmission spectrum of the optical fiber, respectively, acquires a band
structure. When the resonance condition for the radiation incident on the wall at an incidence angle of
almost π/2 is satisfied, the reflection coefficient decreases, which leads to large optical losses in the
optical fiber. If the resonance condition is violated (or the antiresonance condition is met), then the
reflection coefficient from the capillary wall increases significantly and the optical fiber transparency
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
zones are formed (see Figure 2d, line 2). Later, such a mechanism was actually re-considered in [12],
and it was given the abbreviated name ARROW (AntiResonant Reflecting Optical Waveguide). Note
that it is possible to further develop the resonantly reflecting structure of the fiber cladding (see,
for example, [13]). In the case of RF, such a development leads to a structure with double nested
capillaries [6,7] (see Figure 1c). Finally, an introduction of negative curvature at the core-cladding
interface by forming a reflective cladding as a capillary layer (RF, [1]) preserves the band structure of
the light transmission spectrum, but it leads to a further increase in the reflection coefficient of radiation
at the core-cladding interface. As a consequence, the optical fiber losses are significantly reduced. This
can be explained qualitatively, as follows. The parts of the capillaries walls that are located closer to
the center of the core act as parts of the cladding in the TW model. Parts of the capillary walls, which
deviate significantly from the circle inscribed into the RF core, interact with electromagnetic radiation
as the sides of the corner with highly reflective coating (see Figure 2c, 2). In the ray approximation,
it can be said that the light rays are reflected from these corner structures (see Figure 2c, 3), and the
decrease in the glancing angle of the rays and the decrease in the radiation intensity as we approach
the angle vertex [14] leads to a significant decrease in optical losses in comparison with the model TW.
In addition, when the capillaries in the shell are separated by a distance d << (2 · π)/k ⊥ from each other,
where k ⊥ is the component of the wave vector perpendicular to the axis of the fiber, the propagation
conditions of the radiation along the core practically do not change. This roughly corresponds to the
removal of a part of the “mirror” angle at its vertex, which is indicated by the dotted line in Figure 2c,
3. However, in this case, the excitation of the cladding modes that are associated with the areas of
contact of capillaries with each other will be substantially reduced. All of this leads as a result to the
further effective reduction of optical losses in the RFs. This was confirmed experimentally in [4].
Figure 2. (a) Cross-(1) and longitudinal (2) sections of the hollow waveguide [10]; (b) Cross-(1) and
longitudinal (2) sections of the tube waveguide [11]; (c) Cross-section (1) of the RF [1], approximation of
the part of the walls of the reflecting capillaries by the mirror sides of the angle α (2), a reflection scheme
of a ray propagating along the RF, from a corner with mirror sides (a projection onto the cross section
of the optical fiber) (3); and, (d) Calculated optical loss spectrum for silica fibers: hollow waveguide
(HW), tube waveguide (TW) and RF. For all waveguides, the hollow core diameter is assumed to be
77 μm, and the thickness of the capillary wall (for TW and RF) is 1.15 μm.
Already in the case of HW, the high reflection coefficient at the core-cladding interface leads to
the fact that the modes in HW are similar to the modes in perfect conducting metallic waveguides,
65
Fibers 2018, 6, 39
when operating far from cutoff. This feature was mentioned in [10]. RFs, as any other NC HCFs, have
an even higher reflection at the core-cladding boundary. For this reason, the radiation power in RF is
even more concentrated in the hollow fiber core. In these circumstances, the optical absorption of the
material, from which the RF is made, recedes into the background, while the optical losses of the RF
become mostly defined by the geometric parameters of the optical fiber design and by the conditions
for Fresnel reflection at the interfaces. This means that RF can be used to exploit a variety of optical
phenomena, even in those spectral regions where the fiber material (e.g., silica) is opaque.
As shown by the simple RF models that are discussed above, the possibility of waveguiding the
laser radiation with low losses in RFs in the UV and mid-IR spectral ranges is mainly due to dispersion
of complex refractive index n(λ) = Re(n(λ)) + i·Im(n(λ)) of a fiber material. Note, the choice of materials
for RFs is largely limited: up to now, RFs have been made of silica glass, chalcogenide glass [15], and
organic glass (polymethylmethacrylate) [16]. Waveguiding properties are also influenced by the ratio
of the wavelength to the basic geometric dimensions of RF, such asthe diameter of the hollow core
Dcore and the thickness of the capillary walls d. However, this ratio can be optimized for a wavelength
of interest during the fiber manufacturing process.
For RFs that are made of silica glass, the optical loss increases with wavelength in the mid-IR range
up to a wavelength of 7.3 μm (see Figure 2d). This occurs for two reasons: Re(nSiO2 ) decreases [17],
which leads to a decrease in the Fresnel reflection coefficient from air-glass surfaces (here the Fresnel
reflection coefficient is mainly determined by the Re(nSiO2 ) value, since the value of Im(nSiO2 ) is
small in comparison with unity). In addition, radiation absorption in the silica capillary wall begins
to reveal itself in the wavelength region of about 5 μm. As a result, the efficiency of the ARROW
mechanism decreases and the value of the reflection coefficient from the capillary wall starts to decrease
further, approaching the values that are characteristic for the HW model. This is also true for longer
wavelengths of the mid-IR range, with the exception of small regions around 7.3 μm, and possibly
around 9 μm and 20 μm. Note, that around those wavelengths the value of Re(nSiO2 ) is close to unity,
and reflection at the air-silica boundary is practically absent so that silica hollow core microstructured
fibers (HCMFs) cannot demonstrate any waveguide properties.
In the near-IR and visible ranges, RF from silica, like silica glass itself, exhibit their best properties.
While shifting along the wavelengths towards the UV band, the value of Re(nSiO2 ) increases, thus
reducing the optical losses in RFs. However, at a wavelength of about 150 nm, the value of Im(nSiO2 ) has
sharp increase, which, like in the mid-IR range, leads to the “shutdown” of the ARROW interference
mechanism. As a result, the value of optical losses increases up to the level that is determined by
only one reflection at the core-cladding interface (HW). Nevertheless, the results that were obtained
show that silica-based RFs can be used up to vacuum ultraviolet (124 nm) [18]. In the case of RFs
that are made of chalcogenide glass, the waveguiding properties of RFs have been demonstrated
up to wavelengths ~10 μm [15]. THz radiation can also be transmitted in polymethylmethacrylate
waveguides that are similar to RFs [16].
3. RF with Various Cladding Structures

Spectral properties of RFs were investigated in detail by numerical simulation and experimentally.
Optical loss is one of the main parameters of RFs. Figure 3 shows the most available now experimental
data on optical losses in silica glass RFs of various types. For comparison, the optical losses in different
types of silica glass HCFs and the absorption spectrum for pure silica glass are also shown. As can
be seen in Figure 3, in the UV range the optical losses of RFs (Figure 3, data 15) are approaching to
the absorption level of a pure silica glass (Figure 3, data 2), while HCFs that have square (data 14)
and hexagonal (data 11) cores without negative curvature demonstrate properties that are similar to
RFs. In the near-IR range, the photonic bandgap HCFs (data 6) have the lowest level of optical losses.
At wavelengths 3–4.4 μm in the mid-IR both RFs (data 5, 16, 17) and “ice-cream-cone” shaped HCFs
(data 8) show similar optical losses, which outperform the attenuation in pure silica glass (data 3).
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
Note, the RFs (Figure 3, data 4, 16) are the only hollow-core silica fibers that have demonstrated optical
transmission at wavelengths above ~4.4 μm.
Figure 3. Optical loss in pure silica glass (F300, Heraeus, Hanau, Germany) (blue curves, 1–3) and
the minimal optical loss obtained to date in different types of silica glass hollow-core fibers (HCFs).
Data on RFs is highlighted in red. In the figure legend, the plotted experimental data are indexed by
numbers in round brackets followed by references to literature in square brackets. More details are
given in the text [19–35].
Figure 3 indicates that RFs extend the applicability of silica glass technology into the mid-IR
spectral range (above ~3 μm). For example, at the wavelength of 4.4 μm, where absorption coefficient
of the silica glass is about 4000 dB/m (Figure 3, data 3), the RFs that are made of silica glass allowed
for the demonstration of optical losses as low as 1 dB/m (Figure 3, data 16). One should note, that
compared with RFs made of silica glass, the solid-core non-silica fibers have lower optical losses in the
mid-IR. For example, optical losses less than 0.1 dB/m were demonstrated in fluoroindate fibers in
the 2.0–4.5 μm spectral range [36] and in chalcogenide fibers at a wavelength of up to 6.5 μm [37,38].
At an even longer wavelength (8–16 μm), the silver halides fibers with optical losses below 1 dB/m are
available [39]. In general, non-silica solid-core mid-IR fibers provide the level of optical losses that is
10–1000 times lower than the optical losses of the silica RFs at the same wavelengths. Nevertheless,
the usage of RFs that are made of silica glass can be advantageous at wavelengths of up to ~5 μm,
as reasonable level of optical attenuation can be achieved using well-developed silica glass technology.
Moreover, a damage threshold of RFs is much higher when compared with solid-core non-silica mid-IR
fibers. Thus, hollow-core silica RFs are indispensable for high power applications.
3.1. RFs with Touching and Non-Touching Capillaries in a Cladding

After the first RFs that had touching capillaries in the cladding (Figure 1a) [1], a modified RF
with non-contacting capillaries in the cladding was proposed (Figure 1b) [4]. It turned out that this
RF structure has lower optical losses than the previous one. Subsequently, RFs with non-contacting
capillaries in the cladding were used in many works (see, e.g., [32,34,40,41]).
It was numerically demonstrated that the absence of touching points between capillaries removes
the additional resonances in the transmission bands (Figure 4). In simulations, the two models of RFs
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
were analyzed and compared. All of the geometrical parameters of the RFs were identical, except that
gaps between the capillaries in one of the fibers (red line in Figure 4) were filled with glass (see inset
in Figure 4). So, all of the difference between two curves in Figure 4a is defined by the presence of
the nodes between the capillaries in the cladding. The cladding of each virtual fiber consisted of eight
capillaries that had the outer and inner diameters of 63 μm and 51 μm, respectively. The minimal
distance between the non-touching capillaries was 1.3 μm. The loss spectra were calculated in the
spectral range of 3–6.5 μm for both RF models. It was clearly shown that the presence of nodes between
the capillaries leads to an increase of optical losses due to the occurrence of resonances between the
core and cladding modes.
Figure 4. (a) The calculated fundamental mode loss for a silica RF with capillaries in touch and
non-touching capillaries in the cladding; (b,c) Schemes of cross sections of these RFs.
For the first time, a revolver fiber with separate capillaries in the cladding was fabricated in [4].
The real fiber had outer diameter of 290 μm, the core diameter of 110 μm and the capillary wall thickness
of 6 μm. The fiber cross section and the measured spectrum of optical losses are shown in Figure 5.
One can see that the average level of optical losses measured in the spectral range of 2.5–5 μm was about
4–5 dB/m. At longer wavelengths of around 5.8 and 7.7 μm the losses were measured to be 30 and
50 dB/m, respectively. Transmission bands at 3.3 and 4.3 μm have a number of absorption peaks, which
are related to the absorption lines of HCl (similar to work [3]) and atmospheric CO2 , respectively. Optical
absorption of fused silica glass is also shown for comparison (Figure 5, black curve).
Figure 5. (a) The measured loss (red); the loss measured with He-Ne laser at 3.39 μm (red asterisk); the
material loss in fused silica (black); the calculated loss of the fundamental mode (green) of the RF; (b)
the micrograph image of the RF cross section, Dcore = 110 μm and capillary wall thickness d = 6 μm.
To analyze the experimental results, a numerical modeling of the optical losses for the fundamental
mode of the fiber was carried out (Figure 5, green curves). As can be seen from the Figure 5, the
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
calculated and the experimental band edges superpose very well. On the other hand, the minimum
loss level in transmission bands differs significantly. It occurs mainly due to the presence of higher
order modes in the process of loss measurement (multimode light source was used to excite a short
fiber section during the experiment). This idea was confirmed by loss measurement that was carried
out by cut-back technique in 11-m-long fiber and a few-mode 3.39 μm He-Ne laser as a light source.
This experiment showed that at this wavelength the mode content in the fiber was stabilized when the
fiber is longer than 3 m. When only first several modes are present in the fiber, the loss level reaches
50 dB/km (red asterisk in Figure 5), which is much closer to the loss level that was calculated for
fundamental mode at 3.39 μm. Thus, real loss level in the fiber is low enough and can be estimated
using the calculated loss spectrum (Figure 5, green curves).
3.2. RF with a Cladding of Single and Double Nested Capillaries

Material loss of silica glass changes from 0.1 dB/m to 105 dB/m in the wavelength range from
2 μm to 6 μm [42]. Thus, starting at wavelengths >2 μm, the total losses in silica RF begin to be
increasingly determined by the material losses of silica glass. It turns out that the optical loss behavior
for RFs with simple capillaries in the cladding ((Figure 1a,b) and for RFs with nested capillaries
(Figure 1c) is different in the region of high material losses [42]. The optical losses in the nested RF are
lower than in RFs with one row of cladding capillaries up to a certain wavelength in the mid IR spectral
range. In this case, the nested capillaries work as additional reflectors and an increase in reflection
coefficient gives a win in comparison with RFs with one row of cladding capillaries (Figure 1b,c).
Under a further increase in the wavelength, the reflection from the nested cladding capillaries cannot
compensate for the growth of material loss and the total losses, correspondingly. That is why the first
hydrogen Raman laser with a generation wavelength of 4.4 μm [31,43,44] was built using RF with
one row of cladding capillaries. In [4], it was shown that RFs made of silica glass could transmit light
up to wavelength of 8 μm with losses of about several tens of dB/m (Figure 5). This level of optical
losses is too high for practical use. Nevertheless, silica glass RFs with one row of cladding capillaries
can be used in practice up to wavelength of 5 μm. It is possible because material loss of silica glass
increases by approximately an order of magnitude in comparison with previous values (Figure 5a).
In this way, nested RFs have lower losses in comparison with RFs with one row of cladding capillaries
in the transparency region of silica glass. RFs with one row of cladding capillaries have an advantage
in the region of high loss of silica glass. Also, it is necessary to take into account bend loss.
RF bending naturally results in an increase of fiber losses. However, fiber bending reveals another
important feature of RF: the resonance coupling of the hollow core modes with the cladding capillary
modes (Figure 6). For the first time such, the resonant coupling was found by numerical simulation
in [15], and then this effect was experimentally investigated in [8,16,45].
As can be seen from Figure 6d, with a decrease in the bending diameter, the RF transmission
decreases non-monotonically, but high loss peaks due to the resonant coupling between the core
mode and the cladding capillary modes are observed. Depending on the bending radius, the resonant
coupling can occur both in the same capillary for modes of different orders, and in different capillaries
of the cladding Figure 6a–c. In both cases, the resonant coupling increases the losses in hollow core
mode dramatically. Similarly, higher order core modes can be resonantly coupled to capillary modes.
This RF feature can be used for the filtering of the hollow core modes. For example, if the ratio of the
inner diameter of the capillary to the hollow core diameter is equal to 0.68, a resonant coupling of the
core mode LP11 to the capillary mode LP01 occurs, i.e., the RF becomes quasi-single-mode [33,34].
To transmit light in RF made of silica glass in the mid IR spectral range in the vicinity of wavelength
of 5 μm with losses about 1 dB/m, it is necessary to carry out optimization of the cladding geometry. The
optimization parameters are thickness of the capillary wall to obtain the transmission band at the desired
wavelength, the number of the cladding capillaries and diameter of the hollow core. An alternative way
of solving the problem of light transmission in the mid IR spectral range with low loss is that to use soft
glasses (chalcogenide, tellurite). They have low material losses in the mid IR spectral range.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
Figure 6. The experimentally measured intensity distributions of the hollow core modes arising at the
bending of the RF; white lines show a RF cross-section contour. Intensity distributions are shown for:
(a) RF bend diameter of 1.6 cm; (b) bend diameter of 3.6 cm; (c) bend diameter 5.6 cm; (d) The experimental
dependence of the light intensity transmitted through the RF vs. bend diameter of the fiber [15].
3.3. Optical Properties of RFs in UV Spectral Range

A different situation is observed under light transmission in the UV spectral range. Measured
losses of silica glass in the spectral range from 200 nm to 400 nm are not as high as in the mid IR spectral
range. They vary from a few tenth to 10 dB/m [20]. Therefore, when comparing waveguide losses
and material losses one can conclude that the former play the main role in this case (for wavelengths
λ > 150 nm). In this way, the main mechanism allowing for one to decrease the level of total losses is an
optimization of geometric structure of silica glass RF. On the one hand, low waveguide losses can be
obtained by increasing the air core diameter. On the other hand, it leads to excitation of many air core
modes due to inhomogeneous construction of the fiber occurring under the drawing. It also leads to a
narrowing of the transmission bands [30]. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out the optimization of the
RF geometric structure as in the case of light transmission in the mid IR spectral range. The usage of
nested RFs is unlikely due to complexity of their fabrication, for example, it is very difficult to keep the
sizes and shapes of the cladding capillaries under the drawing. Besides, it is important to choose a
number of the cladding capillaries. For example, in [46], the waveguide regime was in silica glass RF
with four capillaries in the cladding was demonstrated at loss level about 0.5 dB/m at wavelength
of 350 nm. The sizes of the cladding capillaries were comparable with the air core diameter, which
should lead to high bend losses. In work [30], silica glass RF with eight capillaries in the cladding was
demonstrated. It transmitted light in the spectral region from 350 nm to 200 nm and the loss level
was about 1–2 dB/m. The authors explained such rather high loss level by imperfect construction of
the drawing fiber. In conclusion, it is worth saying about polygonal fiber, which localizes light at the
expense of double antiresonant mechanism [29]. The authors of [29] proposed to use the fiber with the
square core-cladding boundary. Such fiber allowed for transmitting light up to wavelength of 241 nm
with optical losses that are comparable with those that were reported in work [30].
4. Technology of the RF
Until now, most of the revolver-type optical fibers had been made of silica glass. Significantly
greater difficulties arise with the manufacturing of RF from glasses of other types, for example,
chalcogenide glass. Let us consider the manufacturing processes of these fibers one after another.
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4.1. Technology of the Silica Glass Based RF

The significant advantages of RFs over, e.g., Kagome type HCMFs, is a simpler waveguide
structure. Accordingly, RFs have a simpler manufacturing technique, since the reflecting cladding
contains only one layer of capillaries.
Usually, RFs are manufactured by the ‘stack and draw’ technique. This technology consists in
stacking the prefabricated capillaries inside the support tube (Figure 7). In doing so, the capillaries can
either touch each other (Figure 7a), or between the capillaries can be inserted additional elements at the
beginning and at the end of the preform (Figure 7b). In the first case, a RF with touched capillaries [1]
or an “ice-cream-cone” structure [3] is obtained. In the second case, it is possible to obtain a RF with
non-touching capillaries [4]. Furthermore, simple single capillaries (Figure 7a), or capillaries of a more
complex structure, for example, double nested capillaries (Figure 7b) can be used to fabricate the RF.
The result is either RF with single capillaries that works best in spectral areas where silica glass has
high absorption, or RF with double nested capillaries that provides less optical loss in spectral regions
with low silica glass absorption.
After the stacking step, the preform is usually treated by flame to weld the capillaries with the
supporting tube. However, this procedure is not necessary in some cases. For example, in [15], the RF
was made from chalcogenide glass, which has a high temperature expansion coefficient, and the heat
treatment was not carried out to avoid the possible cracking of the preform.
Figure 7. Cross sections of optical elements at the main stages of RF production: (a) Picture of the RF
preform with single capillaries touched to each other; (b) Cross-section of the RF preform with silica
elements between the double nested capillaries, Ø 25 mm; (c) SEM image of the RF cross section (drawn
from the preform in Figure 7a); and, (d) SEM image of the RF cross section with double non-touching
capillaries, Ø 110 μm (from the preform in Figure 7b).
During the fiber drawing process, an excess gas pressure is applied to the capillaries, in order
to prevent their collapse under the action of surface tension forces. Usually, a gas pressure regulator
is used for this purpose. The regulator is connected to all capillaries and it provides the necessary
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
overpressure. This solution has a significant drawback, which does not allow for the fabrication of
RF with strictly identical capillaries. Obviously, the capillaries have dimensional deviations, and
therefore the surface tension force, which tends to collapse the capillary, will be different for each of
the capillaries. So, for each capillary, it is necessary to use an individual pressure regulation system,
which in practice is hard to realize. As a rule, in practice, the same pressure is applied to all capillaries,
while the capillaries dimensional deviations increase during the drawing process (see Figure 8, upper
way). This happens because the capillaries of a smaller diameter tend to collapse during the drawing
process, while capillaries of larger diameter tend to blow up. Nevertheless, the using of high-quality
tubes (for example silica tubes by “Heraeus”) for the capillaries production allows for achieving good
results even in technology with the same pressure being applied to all capillaries.
Figure 8. The scheme of RF drawing. Drawing with same pressure in all capillaries (on the top),
drawing with sealed end (on the bottom).
There is an alternative approach, which is usually applied to drawing micro-structured fibers,

but is also applicable to RF production. The method is called “fiber drawing with sealed upper end”
(Figure 8, bottom). The key point of this technology is that the holes of the preform are sealed at the
top end of the preform. In such a way, each hole initially contains a certain gas volume and all of the
holes are isolated from each other. During the drawing process, the lower part of the preform is heated,
the pressure in the holes increases, and the holes expand. Therewith, the increase of the hole volume is
determined by the ratio of temperature on top and bottom of the preform. In the first approximation,
the increase of the hole volume does not depend on the diameter of the hole. In other words, all of the
holes of the preform expand in the same way [47]. Thus, the hole size distortion, which is present in
the perform, remains in the fiber. While using the technology with the same pressure being applied to
all holes, the hole size deviation from the mean value increases when the fiber is drawn.
4.2. Technology and Properties of the RF Based on Chalcogenide Glasses

Although the waveguide regime in RF made of silica glass was demonstrated up to a wavelength
of 7.9 μm [4], the optical losses in RFs are higher than 10 dB/m at wavelengths longer than 4.5 μm.
Apparently, it is impossible to construct a silica glass hollow fiber of a reasonable core diameter, which
would have optical losses at a level of ~1 dB/m at wavelengths that are greater than 5 μm. Therefore,
to work in the longer wavelength range, it is necessary to develop hollow fibers that are made of
other materials. Tellurite glasses have a wider transparency region [48], so, they can enable extension
of the RFs low-loss region to the wavelength of 5.5–6 μm. But, a more radical benefit is the use of
chalcogenide glass.
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However, from the technology point of view, the chalcogenide glass is substantially less
manufacturable. Both the quality of the chalcogenide glass tubes and their physical properties lead
to the fact that production chalcogenide RF with perfect geometric parameters is a much more
complicated task (compare the cross sections of quartz RF in Figure 7c,d and chalcogenide RF in
Figure 9b,d). For the first time, a chalcogenide RF was made in 2011 [15]. To fabricate the optical
fiber, a high-purity As30 Se50 Te20 glass was used. The fiber was made by the “stack and draw”
technique. The support tube was made by the centrifugal casting method inside an evacuated silica
tube. Capillaries were produced by the double crucible method from the melt of chalcogenide glass.
The stacked preform is shown in Figure 9a. The preform was drawn on standard drawing tower using
special low-temperature furnace. The obtained fiber had outer diameter of 750 um, core diameter of
260 μm, and capillary wall thickness of 13 μm (see Figure 9b).
Figure 9. (a) The stacked perform of RF made of As30 Se50 Te20 glass, the tube outer diameter—16
mm, the tube inner diameter—11 mm, the capillaries outer diameter—3 mm, the capillaries inner
diameter—2.4 mm; (b) SEM image of the As30 Se50 Te20 RF cleaved end face, the fiber diameter is 750 μm;
(c) the CO2 -laser radiation intensity (in a.u.) distribution over the As30 Se50 Te20 RF cross section. White
lines show the cross section of the RF; and, (d) optical microscope image of the As2 S3 RF cleaved end
face, the fiber diameter is 820 μm.
Optical loss of his fiber was 11 dB/m at the wavelength of 10.6 μm. Also, the propagation of CO2
laser radiation along the hollow core has been detected by the thermal imaging camera (Figure 9c).
Then, in 2014, a similar method was used to fabricate a fiber from more technologically simple
glass As2 S3 As2 S3 [49] (Figure 9d). The minimum optical losses in that fiber were 3 dB/m at the
wavelength of 4.8 μm. Also, in the loss spectrum of that fiber, there were significant absorption bands
of typical impurities, for example: S-H bonds at 6.8; 4.1; 3.7; 3.1 μm; CO2 impurity at 4.31 and 4.34 μm;
OH groups at 2.92 μm; and, molecular H2 O at 6.33 μm. This indicates that a significant part of optical
power in that fiber propagates through the glass in the process of loss measurements.
In 2015, the Gattass et al. [50] used the extrusion technology to obtain a preform of a RF of As2 S3
glass. The preform had a diameter of 18 mm and a length of 135 mm (Figure 10a). The fiber drawn
from that preform had the following geometric dimensions: the core diameter was 172 μm, the size of
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
the oval capillaries was 70 by 75 μm, and the thickness of the capillary walls was 7 μm (Figure 10b).
Optical loss turned out to be 2.1 dB/m at the wavelength of 10 μm.
Figure 10. (a) The preform made by extrusion technique of As2 S3 glass; and, (b) The drawn As2 S3
RF [50].
In all works concerned with the chalcogenide RF, the theoretical calculations of optical losses
using the finite element method were carried out. Actually, the experimentally measured loss is
almost always several orders of magnitude higher than the theoretically calculated loss. The observed
difference is explained by the strong sensitivity of the fiber optical properties to the fiber geometric
deviations, and also by the imperfection of the obtained fiber structures. The increased sensitivity
of chalcogenide fibers to the geometric deviations in comparison with silica fibers is due to the high
refractive index of chalcogenide glasses, i.e., with the same absolute variations of the geometric
thicknesses, the variations in the optical thicknesses in chalcogenide fibers are 3 to 4 times greater than
in silica fibers. In addition, the dependence of the viscosity of chalcogenide glasses on temperature is
several times stronger than the dependence of the viscosity of silica glass on temperature (chalcogenide
glasses are “short”), i.e., at identical temperature gradients and temperature fluctuations in the fiber
drawing process, the quality of chalcogenide microstructured fibers is lower than the quality of silica
fibers. It is also clear that the purity and homogeneity of the chalcogenide glasses is worse than the
purity and homogeneity of the high quality silica glass that was used for HCMF fabrication.
In all studies of chalcogenide RF, the loss spectra that were obtained by theoretical simulation
contain a lot of resonant loss peaks. This fact is explained by the resonant coupling of hollow core modes
with special type cladding modes. Similar resonance peaks are sometimes observed in the theoretically
calculated loss spectra of silica RFs at the long-wavelength edge of the transmission bands [8] (see [4],
Figure 4). However, in the case of chalcogenide RFs, the irregularity of the simulated spectra is
observed practically always. This is because the density of states in the cladding of chalcogenide
RF is much higher than in case of silica RFs due to the high refractive index of chalcogenide glasses.
However, in the experiment, narrow peaks of optical losses in the transparency regions of chalcogenide
RFs have never been observed. Apparently, because of the faulty geometry of the produced RFs, the
real loss spectra are broadened.
5. Mid-Infrared Raman Laser Based on Revolver Fibers

What makes revolver fibers attractive is their ability to provide an extremely low overlap of an
optical mode with a cladding material. As a result, the RFs can have low optical losses even in those
spectral regions where the cladding material has strong fundamental absorption. In particular, silica
glass can be used to fabricate revolver fibers for UV and mid-IR spectral ranges. It is instructive to
compare the measured optical losses of RFs with those of pure silica glass (see Figure 3). Although,
in the UV range, the RFs do not yet outperform silica glass in terms of optical losses, in the mid-IR
range, the RFs optical losses are orders of magnitude less than the optical losses of silica glass. Thus,
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current state-of-the-art RFs fabrication technology enables the development of silica fiber devices,
including fiber lasers, for the mid-IR spectral range.
HCFs paved the way to a new class of lasers—the gas fiber lasers (GFL) [51]. Such lasers combine
the advantages of both fiber lasers (compactness, reliability and excellent beam quality) and gas
lasers (wide range of lasing wavelengths, high output power and narrow linewidth). The gain
medium of GFLs is a gas, which fills the hollow core and has dipole-active or Raman-active transitions.
The hollow-core fiber ensures a small mode field diameter and a long interaction length of the light
and gain medium. As a result, thresholds for nonlinear processes, such as stimulated Raman scattering
(SRS), can be reduced by several orders of magnitude with respect to non-guiding schemes.
Currently, GFLs development for spectral range of 3–5 μm is an area of active research.
In particular, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in gas-filled HCFs is used to generate mid-IR radiation.
For example, 2.9–4.4 μm Raman lasers that are based on gas-filled revolver silica fibers have been
recently demonstrated [43,44,52]. Such lasers in the NIR range have been implemented with fewer
difficulties, since RF and HCF of other types have significantly lower optical losses in this region [51,53].
In most studies, gas fiber lasers are constructed in a cavity-free, single-pass scheme [5,51,53–55].
Due to strong localization of light in their core (MFD ~5 ÷ 50 μm) along the entire length of the fiber
(~1 ÷ 10 m) active gas-filled HCFs provide a single-pass gain that is sufficient for laser radiation
build-up from quantum noise. Thus, a single-pass scheme allows for one to realize efficient GFLs that
are based on both SRS [51–54] and population inversion [55]. Designing a cavity for GFLs remains a
challenging problem because there are neither fiber couplers nor analogues of fiber Bragg gratings
for hollow-core fibers. Nevertheless, a few studies addressed cavity-based GFL schemes using a ring
cavity that was made from bulk elements [40] and a Fabry-Perot cavity formed by Bragg gratings
spliced to the end faces of an active hollow-core fiber [56].
An active medium of gas fiber Raman lasers can be formed with light molecular gases, such as
light hydrogen (1 H2 ), deuterium (D2 ), methane (CH4 ), and ethane (C2 H6 ). These gases have a Raman
shift (4155, 2987, 2917, and 2954 cm–1 , respectively) that is large enough to enable single-stage Raman
conversion of 1.5 μm radiation, generated by well-developed pulsed erbium-doped fiber lasers, into
mid-IR spectral range.
A key component for making efficient mid-IR Raman fiber lasers is a hollow-core fiber, whose
characteristics should satisfy certain conditions. A necessary condition is that the optical loss in the
fiber should not exceed the Raman gain of an active medium. Previously [57], a quality parameter (PF )
was introduced to characterize an optical fiber as a Raman-active medium:
⎛ ⎞
α( λ p ) α( λ s ) ⎠
PF = ⎝ +
g0 g0
where g0 is the Raman gain coefficient (in units of dB/(m*W)) of the active fiber for a particular Raman
conversion λ → λS ; α(λP ) and α(λS ) are optical losses of the fiber at pump and Stokes wavelengths,
respectively. The parameter PF has the same dimensions as power and is measured in watts. By its
physical meaning, PF is the threshold pump power of a CW Raman laser that is based on the fiber
under consideration placed in some high-Q cavity [57]. Thus, the less the value of PF , the better the
fiber is for Raman conversion λP → λS , provided the pump pulse duration is sufficiently long.
The parameter PF provides a convenient tool to optimize fiber characteristics for Raman
conversion. Let us consider the dependence of PF on the diameter of the hollow core using simplified
analytical models of hollow waveguide (HW) and tube waveguide (TW) (see Section 2). It is known
that for a straight (i.e., non-bent) HW and TW, the optical losses depend on the diameter of the hollow
core D as 1/D3 and 1/D4 , respectively [13]. Therefore, the models predict that for a straight fiber the
figure of merit PF is proportional to 1/D (for the HW) and 1/D2 (for the TW), because g0 is proportional
to 1/D2 in a case when an effective area of a fiber is proportional to D2 . Consequently, the larger D,
the smaller the PF . Thus, there is no optimum for the straight optical fibers with respect to the diameter
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
of the hollow core. However, bent-induced losses must be also considered. The ability to bend is one
of the main advantages of optical fibers. Assuming that we are working with HW and TW optical
fibers that are coiled to a certain radius R, the bent-induced losses in such fibers are proportional to
the diameter of the hollow core D. As a result, the optical loss of such fibers has a minimum at some
value of the hollow core diameter at any definite wavelength. Correspondingly, the figure of merit PF
reaches its minimal value at some hollow core diameter Dmin , which determines the optimal diameter
of the fiber core for Raman fiber. If we choose a typical bending radius of R = 15 cm and assume that
the revolver fiber is filled with hydrogen at a pressure of 30 bar, then the estimates based on both
HW and TW models give rise to the value of Dmin ≈ 75 μm. Much more rigorous and complicated
numerical modeling of real RFs gives approximately the same value [58].
It is important for PF to be much lower than the pump power that is achievable in the experiment.
Let us consider a model fiber with a hollow-core diameter of ~75 μm filled with molecular hydrogen
at room temperature and a pressure above 10 atm. Assuming that such fiber may in principle have
optical losses α(λP ) ~0.1 dB/m (in the near-IR) and α(λS ) ~1 dB/m (in the mid-IR), we obtain for
the quality parameter PF ~100 W. Much higher peak pump power can be reached using existing
nanosecond solid-state and fiber lasers. However, it is worth noting that the fabrication of hollow-core
silica fibers with mid-IR losses within 1 dB/m is a nontrivial task, because, in the wavelength range
from 3 to 5 μm, the material absorption in silica glass rises sharply, from ~50 to ~50,000 dB/m (see
Figure 3). Nevertheless, revolver silica fibers, which have characteristics that are mentioned above,
were fabricated and mid-IR gas fiber Raman lasers were demonstrated using such fibers.
A typical single-pass scheme of the mid-IR Raman GFLs is illustrated in Figure 11. Lens system
is used to couple pump radiation at the wavelength near 1.5 μm into the gas-filled revolver fiber.
Both ends of the RF are hermetically sealed into miniature gas cells, which had inlets for gas injection
and sapphire windows to couple/decouple the radiation. Radiation at the RF output is collimated by
ZnSe lens, passes through a set of optional optical filters, and is then analyzed by spectrum analyzer
and/or powermeter.
Figure 11. Scheme of the experimental setup: L1 and L2—aspheric fused silica lenses; RF—revolver
hollow-core fiber; Al2 O3 —sapphire windows of the gas cells at the HCF ends; ZnSe—collimating lens
made of zinc selenide; and, Ge—2-mm-thick germanium plate.
The first mid-IR Raman GFL generating at wavelengths around 3 μm was demonstrated
in [59,60],where silica glass RF was used with the calculated transmission spectrum that is shown in
Figure 12a. The mode field diameter of 11-m-long fiber was 45 μm. Filling the hollow core with D2
molecular deuterium (partial pressure of 28 atm) containing 1 H2 molecular light hydrogen impurities
(partial pressure of 2 atm) made it possible to obtain Raman lasing at wavelengths of 2.9, 3.3, and 3.5 μm
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
(Figure 12b). The peak power in the mid-IR spectral region was about 400 W, which corresponded
to an average power of about 40 mW. Conversion quantum efficiency was 10% (at λ = 2.9 μm) and
6% (at λ = 3.5 μm), with the possibility of further optimization. Note that adjusting the 1 H2 and D2
partial pressures and pump power enabled predominant lasing at a wavelength of 2.9 or 3.5 μm to
be obtained.
Figure 12. (a) Calculatedspectrum of optical losses for RF that was developed in [59,60] to realize
Raman gas fiber lasers (GFL) for 2.9–3.5 μm spectral region; (b) Output spectrum of the Raman gas fiber
laser [60]. Peak pump power at λ = 1.56 μm coupled into the RF was 14 kW. A mixture of light hydrogen
and deuterium at partial pressures of 2 and 28 atm, respectively, was used as an active medium.
Later, in studies [43,52,61], the design of silica revolver fiber was modified so as to shift the
transmission spectrum of the fiber to the ~4 μm range (Figure 13a). The mode field diameter was
56 μm. Filling the hollow core with 1 H2 molecular hydrogen at a pressure of 30 atm, the first Raman
lasing at a wavelength of 4.4 μm was demonstrated (Figure 13b) [43,52]. Using single-mode output of
the Raman laser, the loss in the revolver fiber at this wavelength was measured to be 1.13 dB/m, being
in good agreement with numerical simulation results (0.92 dB/m) [61]. Note for comparison, that the
material absorption in silica glass at this wavelength is ~4000 dB/m. The use of 15-m-long RF ensured
Raman lasing with a quantum efficiency of ~15% and the average power of 30 mW at the generation
wavelength of 4.4 μm [52].
Figure 13. (a) Calculated optical loss spectrum of a hollow-core revolver fiber (black dashed lines) [52].
Experimentally measured losses are also shown: near-IR loss spectrum was measured using a
supercontinuum source (blue solid line), and optical losses at wavelength of 4.4 μm (asterisks) was
measured using narrow-band laser source [61]; and, (b) Output emission spectrum of an RF filled with
1 H at room temperature and a pressure of 30 atm. The launched peak pump power was 18 kW [43,52].
2
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To improve efficiency and output power of the 4.4 μm Raman laser, it was analyzed theoretically
by numerically solving a system of coupled wave equations for vibrational SRS in 1 H2 molecular
hydrogen [61]. For this purpose, measured optical losses at wavelengths of 1.56 and 4.4 μm (Figure 13a)
were taken into account. Raman gain coefficient gR = 0.43 cm/GW was calculated for 1.56 → 4.4 μm
conversion using the available data on the linewidth and scattering cross section of the Q(1) vibrational
transition of molecular hydrogen [62–64]. The theoretically evaluated optimal Raman laser length was
found to be ~3.5 m, which is substantially shorter than the hollow-core fiber length (15 m) that was
used in previous experiments.
One interesting result that was obtained in [61] is the possibility of maintaining steady-state SRS
when GFLs are pumped by nanosecond pulses. It is known [62] that, if the pump pulse duration (τp )
and the dephasing time of optical phonons (T2 ) meet the relationship τp ≤ 20·T2 , SRS conversion is a
transient process, in which the Raman gain coefficient decreases. However, T2 can be easily controlled
by varying the pressure of a gas, filling RF core, since the collision frequency of molecules grows
with gas pressure, which leads to more frequent changes in the phase of molecular vibrations, and,
therefore, to T2 reduction. This effect was observed in [61], as the hydrogen pressure was varied in the
range from 10 to 70 atm and ensured an increase in the output power of a Raman laser (Figure 14a)
pumped by 3.5-ns pulses.
Figure 14. (a) Experimentally determined output pulse energy at 4.4 μm as a function of 1 H2 pressure
in the hollow core [61]. The pump pulse duration was τp = 3.5 ns. The vertical dashed line represents a
pressure at which the dephasing time of molecular hydrogen vibrations satisfies the relation τp = 20·T2 ;
and, (b) Calculated (lines) and measured (data points) average output power of spectral components
as a function of average launched pump power for the Raman GFL. Different colors correspond to
different spectral components: 1.56 μm (black), 1.72 μm (blue), and 4.42 μm (red). Dashed red line
represents a quantum limit for 4.42 μm generation. The measurements and calculations were made at
the optimal fiber length (3.2 m) and hydrogen pressure (50 atm) [61].
As a result of optimization of the fiber length and the hydrogen pressure in the hollow core,
4.4-μm Raman generation of nanosecond pulses was demonstrated with an average power that was as
high as ~250 mW and quantum efficiency as high as 36%. In this process, the rotational component at
wavelengths of 1.72 μm was significantly suppressed (Figure 14b) [61].
To date, the efficiency of the mid-IR Raman GFLs is limited by the level of optical losses at the
Stokes wavelength (~1 dB/m). At the same time, it is seen in Figure 12a that the level of losses at
wavelengths below 4 μm is an order of magnitude lower (0.1–0.2 dB/m). This spectral range is suitable
for making more efficient Raman gas fiber lasers that are based on the already existing silica revolver
fibers. The rise in optical losses at wavelengths above 4 μm is caused by the sharp increase in material
absorption in silica glass (as well as by the reduction in its refractive index). New solutions, which
are capable of further minimizing the overlap of the optical mode field with the silica cladding, are
needed to reduce the optical loss in this spectral region. Note also that the use of higher peak power
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pump lasers may improve the efficiency of the mid-IR Raman GFLs because a shorter length of the
hollow-core fibers can be used, thus reducing the detrimental effect of optical losses.
To date, the peak power of pulsed nanosecond Raman GFLs emitting in the range 3–5 μm has
been demonstrated to reach ~2 kW [61]. This parameter is rather limited by the pump power that is
achievable with erbium-doped fiber lasers than by any characteristics of a hollow-core revolver fiber.
Recent works [65,66] have demonstrated Raman gas fiber lasers with an output peak power of 400
and 150 kW at wavelengths of 1.55 and 1.9 μm, respectively. The use of such lasers as pump sources
for gas-filled hollow-core silica fibers paves the way to efficient Raman GFLs generating nanosecond
pulses with a peak power of ~100 kW in the spectral range 3–5 μm. Moreover, such mid-IR lasers can
be realized by means of two-stage SRS in a given revolver fiber segment that is filled with one or a few
gases. First experimental demonstration of two-stage SRS (1.06 → 1.54 → 2.81 μm) in a revolver fiber
has been recently demonstrated in [67], where picoseconds pulses at the wavelength of 2.81 μm was
generated with a peak power of about 10 MW.
The near-IR (λ = 1.56 μm) to mid-IR (λ = 3–5 μm) SRS conversion is known to be accompanied by
a large quantum defect, which may hinder obtaining a high average power at the Stokes wavelength.
At the same time, in a recent study [55] that was related to the gas fiber lasers based on population
inversion, efficient lasing at a wavelength of 3.1 μm was demonstrated under pumping at λp = 1.53 μm.
Despite the large quantum defect, which is comparable to that in Raman lasers, they reached a CW
output power above 1 W. This result suggests the possibility of high average power of gas fiber lasers,
including Raman lasers, in the mid-IR spectral range.
6. High-Power Femtosecond Pulse Propagation in Air-Filled RF

High power ultra-short optical pulses (USP) of pico- and femtosecond durations are powerful
tools for high precision material processing applications, such as micromachining, laser surgery,
and micro-modification [68]. Moreover, a performance of USP source can be noticeably improved by
means of a flexible and robust high power USP delivery option due to specially developed fiber with
extremely low nonlinearity and dispersion also with acceptable attenuation and beam quality. It is
evident that HCMF being capable of light localization in the large air-filled core is the best candidate
for this purpose [69], since the Kerr nonlinear refractive index of air is three orders of magnitude lower
than that of silica glass [70].
Moreover, HCMFs that are filled with air at atmospheric pressure are of particular interest for
the creation of all-fiber systems for the transmission of high-power femtosecond pulses, since they do
not have a sophisticated technology for pumping gas. Nevertheless, in the absence of evacuation at
sufficiently long interaction lengths of the radiation with the gaseous medium, the nonlinear properties
of the gas can exert a strong influence on the spectral-temporal characteristics of powerful ultrashort
pulses [18,71–75].
The propagation of femtosecond pulses in a photonic crystal fiber with a hollow core filled with
atmospheric air was studied in [74]. The 2.4 MW pulse with a spectrum shifted to the long-wavelength
edge of the band was obtained at the fiber output, when a 110-fs pulse with 900-nJ energy at a
wavelength of 1470 nm, was launched into a three-m-long fiber. In [75], the pulses were transmitted
through a photonic crystal fiber with a hollow core filled with air at a wavelength of 800 nm. The Raman
solitons at the output of the 5-m-long fiber had a peak power of 208 kW and 290 fs duration.
Pulses with 105 μJ energy and 844 fs duration were transmitted at a wavelength of 1550 nm
through a Kagome-type HCF with 70 μm core diameter [76]. At the end of a 2.3-m-long fiber, the
300 fs pulses of 78-μJ energy (240 MW peak power) were obtained due to soliton compression. In the
work [77], the Kagome HCF had a transmission band in the 900–1300 nm region, and loss figure of
200 dB/km at 1030 nm. A solitonic propagation regime was observed in a three-m-long air-filled fiber
for pulse energies higher than 100 μJ.
Thanks to relatively simple design, the RF offers remarkable possibilities by means of accurately
maintaining relationships between effective mode field diameter, dispersion, and transmission
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
bandwidth in any wavelength region that is required for pulse delivery. In the RF, the propagation of
femtosecond pulses was studied for a few wavelength bands [35,78–80].
6.1. Linear and Nonlinear Pulse Propagation Regimes

The linear propagation regime (without distortion of pulse spectrum) of femtosecond pulses in
RF at a wavelength of 0.748 μm was demonstrated in [78]. A fiber with eight separate capillaries and a
core diameter of 21 μm (Figure 15a) had a transmission band in the range 700–800 nm. Input pulses
with an average power of 1.3 W, a repetition rate of 76 MHz, and a duration of 180 fs (95 kW peak
power) passed through 10-m-long fiber without distortions of the spectrum and with a dispersion
induced temporal broadening (≈2 times), in accordance with measured group velocity dispersion
(GVD) value of 7.7 ps/nm/km.
Figure 15. (a) RF SEM cross section image [78]; (b) Measured (solid black line) and simulated (dashed
green line) group velocity dispersion(GVD) of the fiber used in experiments at 748 nm wavelength [78];
and, (c) Cross-section image of RF used in experiments at 1560 nm [35].
Long-distance delivery through a low-loss RF of ~1 MW sub-picosecond pulses in the telecom

spectral band was experimentally demonstrated in [35].
Sub-picosecond pulses with up to 530 nJ energy and 1.42 W average power at 1.56 μm central
wavelength from the all-fiber erbium CPA (chirped pulse amplification) source [35] were launched to
the 11.7-m-long air-filled RF coiled to a diameter of ≈30 cm, with ≈80% coupling efficiency.
The cross-section image of the RF is shown in Figure 15c. The RF cladding was formed from eight
silica glass capillaries with ≈2.6 μm wall thickness. Core and outer cladding diameters are 61 μm and
153 μm, respectively. Optical loss measurement by means of the careful fundamental mode excitation at
1560 nm wavelength yields the attenuation of ≈27 dB/km being one of the best results being obtained
for revolver HCFs. GVD for fundamental mode amounts to β2 = −1.42 ps2 /km (D = 1.1 ps/nm/km),
while the fiber nonlinearity coefficient γ has been estimated taking into account Kerr nonlinear
refractive index of air n2 = 3 × 10−23 m2 /W [70], as γ ≈ 10−7 m−1 ·W−1 (γ = 2πn2K /λAeff ) at a
wavelength of 1.56 μm.
If pulse energy at CPA source output was less than ≈380 nJ, the linear pulse propagation
regime through RF was realized [79], with a spectrum at HCF output being almost the same as
the corresponding spectrum of the CPA source.
The CPA source and RF output pulse-widths together with CPA source pulse peak power are
plotted on Figure 16 as a function of CPA source pulse energy. The highest CPA source pulse energy
reaches 530 nJ at 1.42 W average power, while the shortest pulses (360 fs) are obtained at ≈380 nJ
energy resulting in the ≈1 MW peak power. However, strong self-phase modulation (SPM) effect in
the high-power amplification stage of the CPA source results in the broad spectrum wings origination
after the pulse energy reaches ≈380 nJ (≈1.0 W average power).
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Furthermore, the CPA source pulse-width has a clear minimum of 360 fs at 381 nJ energy and
rapidly grows at higher pulse energies with simultaneous saturation of the peak power. As it has been
mentioned above, strong SPM action in the amplification stage of the CPA source prevents further
pulse shortening due to the excessive nonlinear pulse chirping that cannot be compensated by the
grating pair compressor.
Figure 16. Chirped pulse amplification(CPA) source (red) and RF output (blue) pulse-width also with
CPA source pulse peak power (green) versus CPA source pulse energy. (TBP values are given in
parentheses) [35].
RF output pulse-width is almost monotonically decreased during pulse energy growth, as seen
in Figure 16. Thus, as short as 353 fs Gaussian-type pulses have been obtained at 0.94 W maximum
average power at RF output. Hence, nonlinear spectral wings inherent to higher pulse energies are
filtered out at RF output, which is also accompanied by simultaneous pulse shortening. Here we
suggest nonlinearity influence (SPM) in RF on high peak power pulse propagation that depends on
the chirp sign and value of the input pulse, since pulse spectrum undergoes either broadening or
narrowing under SPM influence depending on the initial chirp sign [81].
Finally, RF output beam quality have been examined by means of the beam profile scanning
(in the X and Y planes) in the far field (at a distance of z = 50 mm from RF end face) with 105/125 μm
multimode fiber. Taking into account a RF fundamental mode-field diameter of 45 μm, the M2 values
have been estimated to be M2 ≈ 1.3 and M2 ≈ 1.4 at low and high output average power, respectively.
In work [79], the propagation of high-power 100-fs Gaussian pulses in RF with a transmission
band in the region of 1.56 μm was investigated in a broad range of pump powers. The fiber had
eight capillaries with a wall thickness of 2.5 μm, a core diameter of 55 μm, and an outer diameter of
140 μm, while the power attenuation in the fiber was 0.175 dB/m. The dispersion length for 100 fs
Gaussian pulses at a wavelength of 1.56 μm was calculated to be Ld = t20 /β2 = 2.54 m. The calculated
fundamental mode field diameter at a wavelength of 1.56 μm was 40 μm. Taking into account the
nonlinearity coefficient for air at 1 atm, γ = 9.65 × 10−8 m−1 W−1 , the linear propagation regime in this
RF is limited to a peak power of about 300 ÷ 400 kW, in the case when a nonlinear length of a pulse
Lnl = 1/γP exceeds the effective absorption length Leff ≈ 25 m.
Propagation of pulses through the fiber at pulse powers such, that a nonlinear propagation regime
is realized (Lnl < Ld ), was investigated numerically using the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger
equation for the complex spectral envelope of a pulse [82], taking into account the higher-order
dispersion, the Kerr nonlinearity, and stimulated Raman scattering by rotational transitions of
nitrogen [83,84].
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
Figure 17 shows the results that were obtained for a pulse peak power of 10 MW, at which the
Kerr nonlinear length is 2.5 times smaller than dispersion one for a 100-fs bandwidth-limited Gaussian
pulse. The density plot (Figure 17a) demonstrates a shift of the spectrum at 54 nm to the Stokes region,
in which the structure is much weaker than that in the anti-Stokes region, where several characteristic
bands are clearly distinguishable. Figure 17b demonstrates the dependence of the spectral shift on the
fiber length. The highest shift rate occurs at the first 4 m of the fiber, where the spectrum is strongly
broadened due to self-phase modulation.
Figure 17. Propagation of a 100-fs transform-limited Gaussian pulse with an input power of 10 MW
through the RF: (a) color density plot of pulse evolution; (b) red-shift of the pulse spectrum; and,
(c,d) time-bandwidth product and pulse energy as functions of fiber length [79].
As follows from Figure 17c,d, the pulse preserves the time-bandwidth product and the ratio of the
pulse energy at the half-maximum level to the total energy (within 1%) at fiber lengths between 8 m
and 25 m. This behavior may be attributed to Raman soliton that sustains its shape when propagating
along the fiber (in this case, the soliton order is N = 1.6).
In the nonlinear propagation regime (Lnl < Le f f ), 160-fs pulse with a peak power of more than
12 MW (1.92 μJ pulse energy) can be retrieved from the 5-m-long RF, when 100-fs pulse with 40 MW
peak power (4 μJ pulse energy) is launched into the fiber. Transmission of radiation in the form
of Raman solitons with megawatt-level peak powers, without spreading into a supercontinuum, is
possible within the entire effective absorption length of 25 m.
It is known that the creation and amplification of dispersion waves leads to the instability of
a multisoliton pulse, transforming its spectrum into the supercontinuum. The aforementioned RF
has a relatively narrow transmission window in the range 1450 ÷ 1700 nm, with a dispersion zero at
1.514 μm shifted to the short-wavelength edge of the RF transmission band. For a pulse at a wavelength
of 1560 nm, phase matching, which ensures the efficient transfer of soliton energy to dispersion waves,
is possible at wavelengths that are around 1442 nm located outside the transmission band. Thus, they
cannot be amplified. The dominant process forming the structure of the spectrum is SRS, which can
provide a power-dependent spectral shift of up to 130 nm under appropriate peak power of the input
100-fs pulse.
6.2. Multi-Band Supercontinuum Generation in RF

The most impressive results on supercontinuum generation were obtained in Kagome-type holy
core fibers [18,71]. By varying gas pressure, the supercontinuum spanning more than three octaves from
124 to 1200 nm was obtained in [18]. The Kagome HCF used for supercontinuum generation in these
studies had one or a few broad transmission bands, which, however, limited supercontinuum span.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 39
In the work [80], the possibility of a multi-band supercontinuum generation in the RF with
separated capillaries and a core filled with atmospheric air was demonstrated. For these studies,
eight-capillary RF with a core diameter of 61.5 μm, a capillary wall thickness of 2.7 μm, and an outer
capillary diameter of 25 μm was fabricated. With this capillary thickness, the RF had a large number of
transmission bands with slightly different spectral widths, extending from UV to middle IR spectral
range (Figure 18a). Due to the low GVD of the atmospheric air, the dispersion characteristics for a
fundamental mode in slightly different neighboring transmission bands also had a small difference.
In particular, the presence of GVD zeros near the center of each band created favorable conditions for
the efficient band-to-band transfer of radiation due to nonlinear effects.
Figure 18. (a) Calculated losses for the fundamental mode in the spectral range corresponding to
14 transmission bands; and, (b) Laser emission spectrum measured at the output of the 3-m-long fiber
at the input pulse energy of 110 μJ [80].
A powerful femtosecond solid-state laser was used as a pump source emitting 205 fs pulses
with up to 130 μJ energy at a central wavelength of 1028 nm. It should be noted that the pump laser
generation wavelength lies in the center of the 5th transmission band, in accordance with the ARROW
model, as it is depicted in Figure 18a. Figure 18b shows an experimentally obtained supercontinuum
with a spectral range extending from 415 to 1593 nm wavelength that overlaps 11 transmission bands,
when 205 fs pulses with 110 μJ energy are launched into the RF.
The multimode nature of the light propagation in this RF reduces the efficiency of nonlinear
processes responsible for the supercontinuum generation, owing to a redistribution of energy between
higher-order RF modes. Numerical analysis proved (Figure 19) that at a comparable input pulse power
and a single-mode propagation, the expected supercontinuum can overlap 14 transmission bands,
extending from 370 nm to 4200 nm. Such a spectral width (exceeding three octaves) can be obtained at
fiber lengths of ~50 cm, while the pulse retains more than 50% of its energy.
Figure 19. (a–d) Calculated supercontinuum spectra at different RF lengths for pure single-mode
propagation at an input pulse energy of 110 μJ for various fiber lengths from 0.25 to 3 m [80].
83
Fibers 2018, 6, 39
Detailed analysis of the spectrum structure in various transmission bands made it possible to
establish the main nonlinear processes that are responsible for transferring energy from one band to
another, such as degenerate and non-degenerate four-wave mixing, and the generation of dispersion
waves. It is necessary to emphasize that high efficiency of cascaded nonlinear processes in the RF filled
with atmospheric air is accounted for the uniform distribution of zero dispersion wavelengths over a
wide spectral range.
7. Conclusions
To conclude, revolver fibers are a versatile tool for transmission, generation, and nonlinear
conversion of light in regimes that are not possible in solid-core fibers. Moreover, the design simplicity
of the revolver fibers distinguishes them among other types of hollow-core fibers. At the same time,
the RFs provide an extremely low overlap of an optical mode with a cladding material. As a result,
the RFs can have low optical losses even in those spectral regions where the cladding material has strong
fundamental absorption. In particular, silica glass can be applied to fabricate revolver fibers for UV and
mid-IR spectral ranges. It was experimentally demonstrated that optical losses of the revolver silica
fibers can be as low as ~1 dB/m at wavelength up to 200 nm in the UV and up to 4.4 μm in the mid-IR.
Recently, the implementation of the gas-filled revolver fibers enabled one to demonstrate mid-IR
gas fiber lasers that are based on stimulated Raman scattering. Pumping molecular gases, such as light
hydrogen 1 H2 and deuterium D2 , by nanosecond pulses of a 1.56 μm Er-doped fiber laser, Raman
generation in the wavelength range of 2.9–4.4 μm has been demonstrated. In spite of high quantum
defect for 1.56 → 4.4 μm conversion, the average output power as high as 250 mW was generated at
the wavelength of 4.4 μm with quantum a conversion efficiency as high as 36%. We believe that the
efficiency and output power of the Raman gas fiber lasers can be dramatically improved.
An extremely small overlap of the optical mode with the cladding material is also responsible for
another useful property of the revolver fibers: such fibers can transmit intense ultrashort pulses without
distortion. This fact is advantageous for pulse delivery in material processing applications. Nonlinear
and dispersive properties of the cladding material have a limited effect on pulse propagation, as the
intensity of light in the cladding is rather low. On the other hand, if optical pulses have high enough
intensity, the nonlinearity of a gas inside the hollow core comes into play, enabling various nonlinear
phenomena, such as Raman soliton propagation and supercontinuum generation. In particular,
multiband supercontinuum generation has been demonstrated in an air-filled revolver fiber in the
spectral range of 400–1500 nm. According to numerical simulations, such multiband supercontinuum
can be extended up to ~4.5 μm in revolver fibers that are made of silica glass. Extension towards
even longer wavelengths can be achieved using chalcogenide revolver fibers, which have already
demonstrated optical transmission at the wavelength as long as 10.6 μm.
Finally, we believe that further development of the revolver fibers and devices based on
them can make valuable contribution to numerous applications in biomedicine, spectroscopy, and
material processing.
Author Contributions: A.F.K. fabricated revolver fibers, A.D.P., Y.P.Y., A.S.B. and I.A.B. made theoretical analysis
and calculations, A.V.G., A.N.K. and A.A.K. carried out experiments. All the authors participated in discussion of
the results and manuscript preparation.
Acknowledgments: This work was supported by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Program
No 1.7: Topical Problems of Photonics, Probing of inhomogeneous Media and Materials).
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74. Ouzounov, D.G.; Ahmad, F.R.; Müller, D.; Venkataraman, N.; Gallagher, M.T.; Thomas, M.G.; Silcox, J.;
Koch, K.W.; Gaeta, A.L. Generation of megawatt optical solitons in hollow-core photonic band-gap fibers.
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Roberts, P.J. Femtosecond soliton pulse delivery at 800 nm wavelength in hollow-core photonic bandgap
fibers. Opt. Express 2004, 12, 835–840. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
76. Wang, Y.Y.; Peng, X.; Alharbi, M.; Dutin, C.F.; Bradley, T.D.; Gérôme, F.; Mielke, M.; Booth, T.; Benabid, F.
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77. Debord, B.; Alharbi, M.; Vincetti, L.; Husakou, A.; Fourcade-Dutin, C.; Hoenninger, C.; Mottay, E.; Gérôme, F.;
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fiber-aided laser-micromachining. Opt. Express 2014, 22, 10735–10746. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
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fibers
Review
3D Printed Hollow-Core Terahertz Fibers
Alice L. S. Cruz 1,2, *, Cristiano M. B. Cordeiro 3 and Marcos A. R. Franco 1,2
1 Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica—ITA, São José dos Campos 12228-900, Brazil;
marcos.a.r.franco@gmail.com
2 Instituto de Estudos Avançados—IEAv, São José dos Campos 12.228-001, Brazil
3 Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin, Universidade Estadual de Campinas—UNICAMP,
Campinas 13083-970, Brazil; cmbc@ifi.unicamp.br
* Correspondence: alicelscruz@gmail.com; Tel.: +55-11-99631-2736
Abstract: This paper reviews the subject of 3D printed hollow-core fibers for the propagation of
terahertz (THz) waves. Several hollow and microstructured core fibers have been proposed in the
literature as candidates for low-loss terahertz guidance. In this review, we focus on 3D printed
hollow-core fibers with designs that cannot be easily created by conventional fiber fabrication
techniques. We first review the fibers according to their guiding mechanism: photonic bandgap,
antiresonant effect, and Bragg effect. We then present the modeling, fabrication, and characterization
of a 3D printed Bragg and two antiresonant fibers, highlighting the advantages of using 3D printers
as a path to make the fabrication of complex 3D fiber structures fast and cost-effective.
Keywords: terahertz; THz; 3D printing; addictive manufacturing; waveguide; optical fiber
1. Introduction
The terahertz (THz) spectral range is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum between 0.1–10 THz
or 0.03–3 mm wavelength. For a long period, the terahertz band was relatively unexplored due to
the unavailability of cost-effective and powerful sources. Due to the evolution of these devices in
the mid-1980s, however, terahertz radiation has attracted much more attention. Since this part of
the spectrum is between the infrared (IR) and microwave frequency ranges, the development of
waveguides [1–6], filters [7,8], polarizers [9,10], lenses [11,12], and other optical components benefits
from the well-established technologies [13–15]. The characteristic of terahertz waves to penetrate
most dielectric materials offers the possibility of many applications. The shorter wavelengths than
microwave and millimeter waves allow much greater resolution in imaging, making it suitable
for security scanning, imaging, and non-destructive testing [16,17]. Because of the non-ionizing
characteristic of terahertz, it can pass through organic tissue without causing damage, and it can be
safely applied in biomedical sensing [18,19]. In addition, it is possible to detect many chemicals and
biological agents because they exhibit well defined spectral signatures in the terahertz range [20,21].
Radio astronomy and wireless communication are also fields with great interest in this spectral range.
For example, terahertz waves could be used to detect cold bodies and debris in space or to increase
data transmission using the larger bandwidth of the terahertz band [22–25].
Most terahertz systems are based on free-space propagation, which can control the high losses
that occur as a result of absorption by water vapor. However, most terahertz sources and detectors
are power inefficient and, in a free-space configuration, path power loss is a significant limitation.
Moreover, free-space systems handicap integration with other components. In order to upgrade these
systems to use guided waves one needs low-loss and low dispersion propagation waveguides as basic
components. These waveguides can provide the transference of electromagnetic waves/information
between two points and interconnect systems [4,5,26–31]. Furthermore, they can also be explored as
sensors and imaging probes [21,32,33].

Fibers 2018, 6, 43
Over the last decade, a substantial amount of effort has been directed towards achieving significant
low-loss terahertz fibers and waveguides. Some works show metal rods being used as terahertz
waveguides, but finite conductivity limits their applications [34,35]. An alternative is to fabricate
dielectric waveguides. Polymer optical fiber technology and simple designs, such as a rod or a dielectric
tube, were initially investigated [36–38]. However, dielectric waveguides are lossy due to the bulk
material absorption. Polymers, such as Zeonex® and Topas® (Cyclic Olefin Polymers), have losses with
typical values of approximately 1 dB/cm [36] while silica, an usual glass used in optical fibers, has a
typical loss of approximately 9 dB/cm [39,40]. The first terahertz dielectric waveguide designs tried
to explore the concept of reducing the losses by increasing the air filling fraction of porous polymer
fibers [41–44]. Many different configurations have been demonstrated: periodically microstructured
fibers [36,37]; bandgap fibers [43]; fibers with elliptical air-holes; and fibers with rectangular slot
air-holes to increase the birefringence [5,26,27]. Some waveguide designs have shown interesting
results in terms of low-loss and low dispersion over certain frequency ranges [4,6,30,33]. For example,
in [4] the authors achieved an effective material loss of 0.034 cm−1 at 1.0 THz. In spite of these results,
issues such as broadband transmission, lower losses, low bending losses, easier cutting and splicing
procedures, and availability in long lengths are still a challenge [1,30,41,43,45].
However, even with these achievements, the material losses are still high in porous terahertz
fibers and the best option to overcome this issue is to move on to hollow-core fibers. Hollow-core fibers
are good candidates for low-loss guidance because the material absorption loss can be significantly
minimized. This reduction is mostly due to the modal energy being located within the cladding
air-holes or air-core, reducing the effective material loss to less than 1/20th of the characteristic
loss of the host material. The mentioned fibers and fibers’ preforms can be fabricated via extrusion,
stack-and-draw, and drilling and molding, but the fabrication of more complex structures, with higher
air filling fraction, can be greatly simplified with more advanced manufacturing techniques.
The recent developments in rapid prototyping, from jewelry to food, have been shown as a path
to meet the fabrication of complex 3D structures quickly and cost-effectively. Not only fibers but
antennas, couplers, and metallic waveguides have been investigated and fabricated for GHz and THz
frequencies [46,47]. The additive manufacturing technique creates structures layer by layer. Among the
different additive manufacturing methods, polymer jetting (Polyjet) is the most commonly applied for
the fabrication of millimetric and sub-millimetric components due to its superior spatial resolution
around 100 μm.
This paper reviews the evolution of 3D printed hollow-core terahertz fibers, from the first terahertz
fiber fabricated using knowledge from photonic crystal fibers (PCF) to the most recent achievements
using additive manufacturing (3D printing). The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 outlines the
evolution of additive manufacturing and its challenges. Section 3 relies on 3D printed hollow-core
terahertz fibers. Section 4 focuses on numerical modeling and experimental characterization of a
hollow-core terahertz Bragg fiber and two antiresonant fibers and, in Section 5, concluding remarks
are presented as well as a brief discussion on the future.
2. Additive Manufacturing Technology

The first three-dimensional object created layer by layer via additive manufacturing
(or 3D printing) was in the 1980’s on the rapid prototyping field. Since then, this technology has
revolutionized the manufacturing industry as well as research. Now, cost-effective, customizable,
and quick fabrication is enabling the creation of prototypes or finished products with more efficiency.
Additive manufacturing builds these objects by adding layers of material instead of removing material
from a bulk, as in the milling process for example. Many different materials can be used in additive
manufacturing such as polymers, metal [48], biocompatible material [49], ceramic [50] and organic
compounds. Therefore, many different industries such as food [51], medical [52], pharmaceutical [53],
mechanical [54], and microwaves [46] benefit from the technology.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 43
Additive manufacturing can be split into several branches depending on the fabrication method.
These branches include Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Stereolithography (SLA), Electron Beam
Melting (EBM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Polymer Jetting (Polyjet), and so on [55]. The common
process of these methods is the model design, generally drawn in CAD software, converted to a STL
file, and sent to the printer.
In the microwave and sub-millimetric wave fields, the use of additive manufacturing has grown.
Recent works report the fabrication of waveguides, beam splitters, plasmonic devices, lenses, and
antennas [56–59]. This great interest is due to the compatibility of the fabrication scale, the availability of
several materials, fast processes, reproducibility, and low cost. For terahertz devices, the most common
methods are fused deposition modelling (FDM), stereolithography apparatus (SLA) and Polyjet.
In the FDM process, thermoplastic filaments are heated, extruded through a nozzle and subsequently
deposited on the building bed. Its spatial resolution is given by the nozzle opening. The common
materials are acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid (PLA), and polycarbonate (PC).
In the SLA process a UV laser beam scans the surface of a photo-resin tank to form each layer of
the object. In the Polyjet technique, a print head deposits thin layers of a UV-curable resin onto a
construction tray. UV lamps cure the material as it is being deposited. After finishing one cross-section
sheet another top layer is built. The advantage of Polyjet over the other methods is its superior spatial
resolution of about 100 μm, which depends on the laser spot size.
One of the actual challenges for additive manufacturing is to produce complex components
with high density ceramics. The ceramics are generally processed as powders and present high
melting temperatures. Also, they are not resistant to thermal shocks. The most recent advance on
this technology shows the application of SLA with ceramic suspension as the way to fabricate dense
ceramics. Some commercial solutions are available, such as Admatec Europe. For terahertz devices, the
main challenges of using these techniques are: building long length structures; high absorption
losses of the available materials; surface finish; and the spatial resolution. Some authors have
shown the fabrication of fibers’ preforms with 3D printers and following that the fiber drawing [60]
(what improves the finishing), terahertz optics devices printed with Topas (low-loss polymer) [61],
and extremely high resolution fabrication (around 1 μm) [62]. These recent researches and innovations
shown the great scientific interest in using additive manufacturing as a fabrication method. These
achievements can lead the technology to become the main fabrication method of terahertz passive
devices, keeping in mind the cost-efficiency of the technology.
3. Terahertz 3D Printed Waveguides

The terahertz waveguides should be able to promote propagation of the waves in dry air to
decrease the material absorption contribution. To achieve this goal one of these three physical
phenomena must occur: the photonic bandgap; the antiresonant effect; or the Bragg reflection.
The photonic bandgap effect occurs in hollow-core fibers whose microstructured cladding has an
appropriate distribution of air holes. In the bandgap condition, the terahertz modes cannot be guided
in certain frequency ranges. The antiresonant effect occurs when the light launched in the fiber
core is reflected on both interfaces of the core wall and a constructive interference occurs within the
hollow-core. The transmission spectrum of such fibers can be easily obtained by knowing the contrast
refractive indexes between clad and core as well as the capillary wall thickness, which is similar to
a Fabry–Pérot cavity. Usually these fibers have a far simpler geometrical design than an ordinary
tube (capillary). Another class of hollow-core fibers is based on structures with a cladding formed by
a succession of material layers with low and high refractive indexes, giving rise to a kind of Bragg
reflector known as OmniGuide or Bragg fibers [63].
Based on these physical phenomena, since 2011 researchers have been proposing new designs
of air core terahertz fibers using 3D printing as a fabrication method. The first reported 3D printed
fiber (Figure 1b) was based on a hollow-core PCF-like structure that was fabricated using the Polyjet
technique [64]. In this case, it was possible to achieve a propagation loss of 0.03 dB/mm (0.3 dB/cm)
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Fibers 2018, 6, 43
at 105 GHz by applying a UV-resin with a dielectric constant of 2.75. In 2016, another terahertz
hollow-core fiber based on photonic bandgap propagation and fabricated via Polyjet was proposed,
see Figure 1c [65]. The fiber was printed using a 3D printer with a resolution of 600 dpi and a
UV-curable polymer. One of the challenges using 3D prototyping is to build longer length structures
since the currently available printers have a strict work-volume limitation. In order to overcome this
issue, the authors printed two fibers and connected them mechanically, obtaining an average power
propagation loss of 0.02 cm−1 (0.08 dB/cm) over 0.2–1.0 THz. Other authors are investigating the
possibility of fabricating the preform of the terahertz fibers directly by 3D printing [60].
The next category of hollow-core printed fibers is based on the antiresonant effect with negative
curvature in the core. In a negative curvature fiber, we have the surface normal vector of the core
boundary directed towards the fiber’s center [66]. This negative curvature helps to inhibit coupling
between the fundamental core mode and the cladding modes, which considerably decreases the
propagation losses. In Figure 1d, one can see the cross-section of a fiber fabricated via FDM. This fiber,
built with ABS, was able to guide with low-loss in the transmission windows between 0.10–0.21,
0.30–0.40, and 0.5–1.1 THz [67]. The fiber whose cross section is shown in Figure 1e was fabricated
using PC via the FDM technique and guides terahertz radiation with losses around 10’s dB/cm over a
150 to 600 GHz range [68].
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 1. (a) Porous polymer terahertz fiber design [38] (b) First all-dielectric 3D printed terahertz
waveguide [64]; (c) 3D printed terahertz waveguide based on Kagome photonic crystal structure [65];
(d) Hollow-core with negative curvature [67]; (e) 3D-printed polymer antiresonant waveguide [68];
(f) 3D printed terahertz Bragg [69]; (g) Bragg waveguide with defect layers [70]; (h) Single-mode Bragg
waveguide [71].
The last group of fibers (Figure 1f–h) is based on the Bragg reflection. The characteristics of the
first 3D printed Bragg fiber is all detailed in [69], see Figure 1f. Using the FDM technology and an ABS
polymer, the authors were able to demonstrate low-loss propagation in a 93 mm long fiber. The authors
in [70] showed the application of a 3D printed terahertz Bragg fiber as a powder and thin film sensor
with sensitivity close to 0.1 GHz/μm (Figure 1g). The fiber was built using an SLA system, which has a
transverse resolution of 50 μm and a longitudinal resolution of 1 μm. The printing resin has a refractive
index and an absorption coefficient of around 1.64 and, 1.1 cm−1 at 0.2 THz, respectively. This fiber can
propagate with low-loss propagation of 0.15 cm−1 (0.65 dB/cm) over frequencies higher than 0.35 THz.
The cross-section of the single-mode and low-loss terahertz Bragg fiber presented in [71] can be seen in
92
Fibers 2018, 6, 43
Figure 1h. The authors reached single mode propagation and an average propagation loss of around
3 dB/m (0.03 dB/cm) at 0.27 THz. Table 1 summarizes the main characteristics of the cited fibers.
The porous fiber (Figure 1a) is easily obtained by drilling and drawing a plastic preform, but
the design is limited by how thin the wall thickness can be during the drilling process. However,
some energy will still overlap the lossy material leading to high absorption loss. The hollow-core
bandgap fibers (photonic crystal and Bragg fibers) may decrease the propagation losses by guiding
the wave in the air core, but normally this mechanism works in quite limited wavelength range
(Figure 1b,c,f–h). This wavelength range can be broadened by using antiresonant hollow-core fibers
(Figure 1d,e). In addition, negative curvature structures can avoid/reduce the coupling between the
core/cladding modes, thereby decreasing the propagation loss.
Table 1. Summarized fibers characteristics.
Fiber Guiding Method Printing Method Material Loss (dB/cm) Year

Figure 1b Photonic Bandgap Polyjet UV-resin 0.3 @105 GHz 2011 [64]
Figure 1c Photonic Bandgap Polyjet UV-resin 0.08 @1 THz 2016 [65]
Figure 1d Antiresonant effect FDM ABS 0.3 @0.47 THz 2015 [67]
Figure 1e Antiresonant effect FDM PC 10 @0.3 THz 2018 [68]
Figure 1f Antiresonant effect FDM ABS 0.1 @0.4 THz 2015 [69]
Figure 1g Bragg Reflection SLA UV-resin 0.65 @0.35 THz 2017 [70]
Figure 1h Bragg Reflection SLA UV-resin 0.03 @0.27 THz 2018 [71]
4. Optical Characterization: Numerical Modeling and Experimental Data

In this section, we will present data from some of the 3D printed terahertz hollow-core fibers
produced and studied by our research group in the last few years. We will focus on antiresonant and
Bragg fibers, once they may present lower absorption and confinement losses. The Finite Element
and Beam Propagation Method (FEM and BPM) were used to numerically model the transmittance
spectrum of those waveguides. They were manufactured using a desktop 3D printer based on FDM as
well as SLA [55].
The FDM printer used, Orion Delta (SeeME CNC), has an approximate resolution of 400 μm
defined by an opening of the extruder nozzle that deposits polymer layers with thickness varying from
50 μm to 100 μm. The polymer used in this case was ABS. Also, the SLA printer Form 1+® (Formlabs)
was used in this paper. The printer resolution depends on the laser spot size on the printer plane and
on the displacement along the z-axis, being around 150 μm and 50 μm respectively.
4.1. Numerical Modeling

The simulated and fabricated fibers have the geometrical parameters described in Table 2, where
Dcore is the internal core diameter, Dext is the external fiber diameter, eh is the thickness of the high
refractive index layer, el is the thickness of the low refractive index layer, and L is the fiber length.
The antiresonant waveguide A (ARROW A) and the Bragg fiber were built via the FDM technique
using ABS—which has a real refractive index around 1.6 at 1.0 THz and an imaginary part presented
in [72] (material loss from 21 to 78 dB/cm in the 0.1–1.0 THz range). ARROW B was created via
SLA [73]. The host material has a refractive index around 1.65 and an absorption coefficient of about
11 cm−1 at 1.0 THz (material loss of 47 dB/cm) [74].
The Bragg fiber design is based on five concentric polymer rings (eh ) separated by air layers
(el ). The ARROWs have negative curvature in the core. The first is based on the design of a silica
hollow-core fiber [75] and the second is inspired by a core surrounded by nested capillaries.
Figure 2a shows the core mode effective refractive index calculated with the commercial software
COMSOL® in the range of 0.1 to 1.0 THz. The fluctuation in the dispersion curves are related to the
coupling between core and cladding modes. When an effective index phase match occurs, a resonant
condition is reached. In those frequencies there is a strong exchange of energy between both core
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Fibers 2018, 6, 43
and cladding modes, leading to a higher confinement loss and oscillations showing in the dispersion
curve. Fibers fabricated with thinner polymer web structures could reduce this undesirable mode
coupling condition.
Table 2. Parameters of the 3D printed fibers [67,69,73,74].
Parameters Arrow A [67] Arrow B [73] Bragg [69]
Dcore (mm) 8.2 7.2 7.2

Dext (mm) 55 18 22.8
eh (mm) 0.54 0.4 0.55
el (mm) - - 0.75
L (mm) 67 93 93
Polymer ABS UV-resin ABS
Material loss @1 THz 78 dB/cm 47 dB/cm [74] 78 dB/cm
Figure 2b shows the spectral transmission calculated for the three fiber samples in the same
frequency range. Windows of low-loss propagation for all fibers can be observed. These windows
are mainly related to the antiresonant propagation condition between two consecutive high loss
resonances, where the fibers guide with losses smaller than 3 dB/m.
(a) (b)
Figure 2. (a) Effective refractive index of ARROW A, ARROW B, and Bragg fiber; (b) Spectral
transmission with high losses dips due to the resonant effect. The numerical simulations considered
1 m long fibers to the transmission analyses.
A simple analytical equation can predict the resonant frequency, taking into account the refractive
index and thickness of the solid ring around the air core (dashed gray line in Figure 2b) [67]. It can
be seen that these frequencies match the numerical data for the Bragg Fiber well. For the ARROW
fibers, however, the analytical equation cannot predict precisely the resonances since the cores are not
a perfect ring. Also, we see low-loss propagation windows in the Bragg fiber that match the calculated
resonant frequencies. Consequently, it is possible to affirm that the main phenomena supporting the
terahertz propagation is also the antiresonant effect at the first polymeric ring. However, using other
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Fibers 2018, 6, 43
materials with a lower refractive index contrast than polymer and air can allow the fiber to guide
waves via Bragg reflections. Note that, the main geometrical parameter that affects the 3D printed
fiber loss is the polymer thickness (eh ) [38]. Decreasing eh shifts the transmission peaks to higher
frequencies, and reduces the number of polymer/core mode couplings.
4.2. Experimental Characterization

The most common method used to characterize terahertz waveguides is the measurement of
the transmission mode using a time domain spectrometer (TDS). Two terahertz electric pulses are
measured, as shown in the Figure 3 inset. The first one, named reference pulse, is measured with
all optics described in [1] except the waveguide. After that, a second pulse with the waveguide in
the sampling area is taken, called a sample pulse. As demonstrated in [1], the loss and dispersion
parameters can be calculated from these pulses.
Figure 3a shows the numerically and experimentally obtained spectral transmission of ARROW
A (red and blue curves). During the numerical analyses, the polymer absorption was not considered.
It was observed that the numerical data can predict the regions with high and low transmission,
such as the frequency around 0.24 THz where core and polymer modes couple. As can be observed,
the numerical and experimental spectral transmission data exhibit a difference in both frequency and
amplitude. This mismatch can be attributed to the fact that the numerical data considered an idealized
fiber with no absorption losses and no scattering due to the imperfect dielectric surfaces.
Figure 3b shows the normalized transmission spectrum to the Bragg fiber. Transmission bands
were observed between 0.12–0.26 THz, 0.32–0.48 THz, and 0.50–1.00 THz. For lower frequencies there
is good agreement between the bandgap regions. At high frequencies, however, the dips are shifted in
frequency. Inaccuracy in the printing fabrication, such as roughness or deformation, could lead to this
mismatch and should be further investigated. Moreover, the fiber length (93 mm) might not be long
enough to establish the bandgaps for some frequency ranges.
It is important to note that these fibers guide with propagation losses significantly lower (around
0.3 dB/cm) in comparison with the absorption losses of the bulk material (about to 78 dB/cm).
(a) (b)
Figure 3. (a) Experimental and numerical transmission of ARROW A (93 mm long); (b) Experimental
and numerical transmission of the Bragg fiber (100 mm long). Inset the reference and sample
electrical pulse.
5. Discussions
We have reviewed different 3D printed hollow-core terahertz fibers focusing on low-loss
propagation, breaking down the results from the literature according to their guidance phenomena.
Terahertz hollow-core fibers, fabricated by additive manufacturing, are an attractive option to overcome
the losses in terahertz waveguides.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 43
Such manufacturing technology has experienced significant advances in recent years, providing a
good solution on the fabrication of devices with complex geometries and low volume. It opens new
opportunities to explore very complex fiber designs that are impossible to fabricate using conventional
fiber optic manufacturing techniques, such as the ARROW B. Furthermore, we can consider the
following advantages: the 3D CAD modeling provides many freedom degrees to design structures;
final parts with low porosity; low material waste; availability to work with different materials such as
food, ceramics, metal, and polymers, etc.; and the availability of a large number of commercial printers.
Despite the mentioned advantages, new research must increase the printing speed, develop and
standardize the available materials, validate the materials thermal, mechanical, and optical properties;
as well as increase the printers’ spatial resolution. In addition, new means to overcome the short length
print and the surface finish should be explored.
The great potential of this technology and the solution of the issues discussed above will likely
lead 3D printing to be the fabrication method for millimetric terahertz components and waveguides,
as recent works have shown.
Author Contributions: A.L.S.C., C.M.B.C. and M.A.R.F. designed the fiber samples and conceived the experiments.
M.A.R.F. realized the numerical simulations. A.L.S.C. performed the experiments and drafted the paper and
figures with input from all authors. All authors revised the manuscript. M.A.R.F. supervised the project.
Funding: This work was partially supported by CNPq and FAPESPA by the project INCT-Sensors and Optical
Network, and CAPES.
Acknowledgments: The authors thank Gildo Rodrigues for fabricating the ‘Arrow B’ terahertz fiber.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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99
Article
Effect of Nested Elements on Avoided Crossing
between the Higher-Order Core Modes and the
Air-Capillary Modes in Hollow-Core Antiresonant
Optical Fibers
Laurent Provino
PERFOS, Research Technology Organization of Photonics Bretagne, 4 rue Louis de Broglie,
22300 Lannion, France; lprovino@photonics-bretagne.com
Abstract: Optimal suppression of higher-order modes (HOMs) in hollow-core antiresonant fibers

comprising a single ring of thin-walled capillaries was previously studied, and can be achieved when
the condition on the capillary-to-core diameter ratio is satisfied (d/D ≈ 0.68). Here we report on the
conditions for maximizing the leakage losses of HOMs in hollow-core nested antiresonant node-less
fibers, while preserving low confinement loss for the fundamental mode. Using an analytical model
based on coupled capillary waveguides, as well as full-vector finite element modeling, we show
that optimal d/D value leading to high leakage losses of HOMs, is strongly correlated to the size of
nested capillaries. We also show that extremely high value of degree of HOM suppression (∼1200)
at the resonant coupling is almost unchanged on a wide range of nested capillary diameter d Nested
values. These results therefore suggest the possibility of designing antiresonant fibers with nested
elements, which show optimal guiding performances in terms of the HOM loss compared to that of
the fundamental mode, for clearly defined paired values of the ratios d Nested /d and d/D. These can
also tend towards a single-mode behavior only when the dimensionless parameter d Nested /d is less
than 0.30, with identical wall thicknesses for all of the capillaries.
Keywords: hollow-core antiresonant fiber; numerical modeling; modal fiber properties
1. Introduction
A new form of silica hollow-core fiber consisting of a single ring of touching or non-touching
antiresonant elements (ARE) surrounding a central hollow-core has emerged in recent years.
This antiresonant fiber (ARF) has been investigated as a result of the discovery of the importance
of core wall shape in the attenuation reduction in Kagome-structured hollow-core fiber in 2010 [1].
Accordingly, it was possible to reduce the Kagome cladding to just one single glass layer of ARE
without significantly increasing fiber attenuation [2]. Thereafter, different hollow core fibers comprising
a single ring of touching capillaries in the cladding void have been proposed and studied. It was
proven that ARFs, with an inverted optical core boundary, possess large transmission bandwidth
and low attenuations in the mid-infrared spectral region due to both low leakage losses and weak
coupling of air-core modes with the cladding structure [3–5]. This type of design was extended to
shorter wavelength transmission in the near-infrared and visible spectrum [6,7]. A modified form
of the basic design with contactless capillaries has also been proposed and fabricated in order to
remove the additional optical resonances in the transmission bands related to nodes between cladding
elements [8]. In this way, the loss level can be further decreased in the mid-infrared wavelength
range [8,9]. Recently, greatly reduced transmission loss at 750 nm in similar fiber was reported by
Debord et al. [10]. By adding one or more nested capillaries within the node-less cladding structure,

Fibers 2018, 6, 42
numerical simulations predicted leakage losses reduction by roughly two orders of magnitude in
the middle and near infrared spectral regions [11,12]. Up to now, the fabrication of at least two
fibers with nested antiresonant node-less elements (NANFs) has been reported for low loss operation.
The fibers have been manufactured both with different [13] and closely identical [14] wall thicknesses
between the inner and outer cladding capillaries. The wall thickness of the large capillaries was greater
than a micrometer. According to performances of theses fabricated fibers, the positive effect of the
nested capillaries on the loss is limited by their small hole diameter and the distinction between the
wall thicknesses of the large and small capillaries. However, a minimum optical loss of 74 dB/km at
1.8 μm was obtained in a NANF with a 25 μm core diameter and a 2.3 μm average wall thickness of all
the capillaries [14]. The leakage loss in the ARFs, as in the NANFs, is inversely proportional to the
fourth power of core diameter [15], so lower losses are much easier to achieve at larger core diameters.
For large core diameters (>25 μm), the ARFs and NANFs are however multimoded [11] and therefore
not ideal for applications where a high modal purity is desirable, for example in high-power pulse
delivery or in gas cells. To suppress HOMs while preserving low confinement loss for the fundamental
core mode, a technique has already been proposed for different designs of ARFs with touching and
non-touching capillaries [16–18]. It exploits resonant coupling between the higher-order core modes
and the air-capillary modes. The approach is analogous to using defect modes in HC-PCFs [19,20];
however, there is no need to create defects in this case, since the capillaries that create cladding structure
can also provide the resonant coupling. Specifically Uebel et al. [17] showed the importance of the
dimensionless parameter d/D, with the inner capillary diameter d and the inner core diameter D, in
order to achieve optimal suppression of HOMs over all wavelength bands where the ARF guides with
low loss. For 6- and 7-capillary designs [17,18], an avoided crossing between TM01 , TE01 , and HE21
core modes and fundamental air-capillary mode is observed at d/D ≈ 0.68 which leads to high leakage
losses of those HOMs and hence, provides robust single-mode guidance at all wavelengths within
the main transmission window, independent of the absolute core size of the structure. This condition
on the capillary-to-core diameter can also be verified for any ARF structures composed of a smaller
number of capillaries. However, a number of capillaries less than six would lead to a pronounced gap
between capillaries that can affect the fundamental mode loss.
The purpose of this work is to study the impact that the nested elements can have on the avoided
crossing between the higher-order core modes and the air-capillary modes, in order to verify that the
condition of HOM suppression established for the ARFs could be applied or not to NANFs. We show
computationally that it is also possible to suppress the HOMs in NANFs; however, the optimal d/D
value, for which the leakage losses of HOMs are maximum, is strongly dependent on the geometric
dimension of nested capillaries. The numerical results are also interpreted and verified by extending
an already proposed analytical model based on coupled capillaries.
2. Design and Numerical Analysis

In order to analyze the influence of nested elements on the modal properties of ARFs, we propose
in this work to maintain the six node-less capillary lattice structure described in [17] and add nested
capillaries of inner diameter d Nested with the same wall thickness t Nested as the outer ones and attached
to the cladding at the same azimuthal position, as shown in the left panel of Figure 1. Considering the
fact that both the transmission band positions [11,12,16,17] and the leakage losses [13] are dependent
on the wall thickness of the capillaries, the choice of setting t Nested = t allows for avoiding additional
effects on the present study.
All numerical simulations reported here are based on a commercial full-vector finite-element
based modal solver (Comsol Multiphysics). A circular Perfectly Matched Layer (PML) surrounding
the simulated area is used to calculate the mode leakage losses. Only a quarter of the geometry is used
in modeling fibers because of the symmetry of the modes [21]. As in [17], we adopted a core diameter
D = 30 μm, a silica wall thickness t = 0.30 μm and a wavelength λ = 1.50 μm, in such a way that the
ratios t/D and D/λ are equal to 0.01 and 20, respectively. The glass refractive index was set a constant
101
Fibers 2018, 6, 42
value of 1.45 and the hollow regions were taken to be vacuum. The material loss is neglected since the
material absorption is quite low at this wavelength [22].
Figure 1. Left: Sketch of the Nested Antiresonant Node-less Fiber (NANF) cross-section, with its key
parameters. Glass is marked in black and the hollow regions in white. Right: 3-dB contour plots of the
−
HE11 fundamental modes and hybrid TE01 modes at the avoided crossing point, for different values of
d Nested /d equal to 0.00 (A), 0.20 (B), 0.30 (C) and 0.40 (D) respectively. The color code used is identical
to that in Figure 2. The contour plots represent the normalized electric field intensity and the red
arrows indicate the polarization direction of the transverse electric field.
In order to model NANF accurately, great care was taken to optimize both mesh and PML
parameters. Typically, a maximum element size of λ/4 was used in the air regions while a rather
dense mesh with a maximum element size of λ/6 in the thin glass regions was found to be essential to
obtain reliable results. To ensure convergence of the numerical results, we first checked our model
by reproducing the results of the [17] (d Nested /d = 0), and afterward the modal properties for the first
guided modes were simulated for d Nested /d ratio respectively equal to 0.20, 0.30 and 0.40.
(a) (b)
Figure 2. Numerically computed modal properties d/D dependence for different values of d Nested /d
with t/D = 0.01 and D/λ = 20. (a) Effective indices of the fundamental HE11 core mode (dot dashed
+ −
curves), hybrid TE01 and TE01 modes (solid curves) and ARE01 air-capillary mode (dotted curves).
The red dashed curve for each d Nested /d value represents the effective index of the ARE01 mode of an
isolated capillary, using the analytic model. (b) Corresponding mode confinement loss.
Figure 2a shows the effective index for the fundamental HE11 core mode, the TE01 core mode,
and the ARE01 air-capillary mode as a function of the radio d/D. The TE01 mode is the higher-order
core mode that has the lowest loss, and also the lowest effective index difference with the fundamental
HE11 mode. Note that, according to the polarization profile of the guided modes, the core modes are
indicated using the designation of vector modes HEnm , EHnm , TE0m and TM0m with n and m integers
and the air-capillary mode of the node-less cladding structure is labeled ARElm with l and m integers,
102
Fibers 2018, 6, 42
based on the notation of the linearly polarized modes. Figure 2b shows the corresponding confinement
loss of the core modes.
For d Nested /d = 0, we find again in Figure 2a the discontinuity of the TE01 core mode effective
index for 0.62 < d/D < 0.75 as in [17], typical of an avoided crossing between the core localized mode
(herein the TE01 mode) and a cladding leaky mode (herein the ARE01 mode) [23]. In this region of
+ −
d/D values, the TE01 core mode splits into two hybrid modes labelled TE01 and TE01 , which evolve
asymptotically in toward uncoupled ARE01 and TE01 modes. Indeed for largest values of effective
index, the TE01 core mode gradually changes its nature to become an ARE01 air-capillary mode and
conversely for smaller values of effective index, the ARE01 air-capillary mode progressively converges
toward a TE01 core mode. For non-zero values of the ratio d Nested /d, the evolution of the TE01 core
mode effective index as a function of d/D is similar. However, we observe an increasing shift in
the position of the discontinuity in relation to d/D when the ratio d Nested /d rises. As with the d/D
parameter, these numerical results show the importance of the nested capillaries’s diameter on avoided
crossing between the TE01 core mode and the ARE01 air-capillary mode, and the scalability of this
phenomenon through the dimensionless parameter d Nested /d. On the other hand, the effective index
of the HE11 core mode remains independent of d/D, regardless of the d Nested /d value.
To quantify the avoided crossing properties, we introduce the quantity D = ∂2 e(ne f f )/∂(d/D )2 .
By analogy with chromatic dispersion, we can associate this quantity with the effective index dispersion
of a mode in relation to d/D. In Figure 3a, we plotted the obtained curves for the four values of the
parameter d Nested /d. For each transition region, we observe that the effective index dispersion curve
exhibits a concave profile and large positive coefficient around a specific (d/D )max value corresponding
TE ARE
at the phase-matching to resonance point (ne f f01 = ne f f 01 ). These values are summarized in Table 1.
The numerical result presented for d Nested /d = 0 is in good agreement with that of the [17], and thus
ensures the validity of the optimal values for the ratio d Nested /d > 0 for which an avoided crossing
between the TE01 core mode and the ARE01 air-capillary mode exists. Similarly to what was already
described in [24], the strength of the interaction between the core mode and the air-capillary mode
or, in other words, the degree of overlap between the fields of the two modes is proportional to the
magnitude of the d/D range over which the transformation takes place, and is conversely in proportion
to the peak value that is smoothed. As a result, we can deduce that an increase of the nested capillary’s
diameter induces a stronger coupling between these modes because the full width at half maximum
Δ FW HM of the curves increases slightly with the d Nested /d parameter and the peak value at (d/D )max
decreases. This increased interaction is related to the nested capillaries which increasingly squeeze the
air-capillary modes towards the fiber core when their sizes increase (see Figure 1 at the right).
(a) (b)
+
Figure 3. (a) Effective index dispersion of the
TE01 hybrid mode as a function of normalized diameter
d/D, for four different values of parameter d Nested /d; (b) Numerically calculated degree of HOM
suppression, plotted against d/D using the simulated confinement losses above. The gray-shaded area
shows the region where NANFs tend towards a single-mode behavior.
103
Fibers 2018, 6, 42
Table 1. Summary of main results and parameters.
d Nested /d (d/D )max Δ FW H M (d/D )th f co f cl

0.00 0.68 0.023 0.68 1.07 0.98
0.20 0.74 0.026 0.75 1.07 0.90
0.30 0.81 0.029 0.81 1.07 0.83
0.40 0.90 0.032 0.91 1.07 0.73
In terms of confinement loss, we observe in each case that the loss of the two hybrid modes
strongly increases up to the avoided crossing point and then slowly varies beyond the (d/D )max
value. Conversely, the HE11 core mode has a weakly fluctuating low loss over the value range of
d/D, independently of the set value of the d Nested /d ratio. We thus find the same performances in the
+, −
evolution of the losses in respect to d/D as described in [17] for the HE11 and hybrid TE01 modes,
which makes it possible to consider finding NANF designs with a strong degree of HOM suppression
compared to the fundamental mode, defined as [17]
α HOM − α FM
Δα HOM/FM = (1)
α FM
+, −
where α FM and α HOM are the losses of the HE11 and hybrid TE01 modes (in dB/m), respectively.
This relation can give an indication of the single-modeness of the given fiber. However, the addition
of nested capillaries decreases the overall losses for all guided modes between one to two orders of
magnitude depending on the size of the nested AREs. For NANFs consisting of six nested elements
with a ratio d Nested /d ≥ 0.30, the suppression of higher-order core modes while satisfying the condition
on the parameter d/D can become problematic. This is due to the fact that the nested capillaries and the
narrow inter-capillary distance effectively shield the electric field leaking into the silica outer cladding
(see Figure 1 on the right hand side). A sufficiently large loss level cannot hence be reached for the
higher-order TE01 mode. In Figure 3b the calculated degree of HOM suppression strongly increases
at the anti-crossing position, peaking at the values around 1200 for the first three values of d Nested /d.
When d Nested /d = 0.40, this value drops at ∼250. The degree of HOM suppression for d Nested /d = 0.30
is similar to that without nested capillaries, whereas the loss is almost two orders of magnitude smaller
for the two core modes. Whatever the value of d Nested /d, the single-mode or multimode behavior of
NANF can only be defined with respect to the length of fiber needed to develop new applications,
such as light-sources/lasers emitting in the deep-UV/UV or the mid-infrared. If only a few meters of
fiber are sufficient so that the losses of the HE11 and TE01 core modes are practically negligible over
this length (as for d Nested /d = 0.30), in spite of the fact the TE01 mode presents 1000 times higher loss,
it will not actually be effectively suppressed. Thus, in order to verify the single-mode behavior of
NANFs over a specified wavelength interval, estimating the degree of HOM suppression is a necessary
but not sufficient criteria and the lowest loss estimation of higher-order core modes is most important.
3. Analytical Model
To understand and predict the avoided crossings in ARFs with touching or non-touching
capillaries, an analytical model in which the core and the cladding of AREs are treated as two coupled
capillaries has been proposed in the [16,17]. We propose here to apply this analytical model to NANFs
depicted in Figure 1. Generally, the effective index of guided modes in the inner region of capillary
with infinite wall thickness can be estimated by the Marcatili-Schmeltzer formula [25], rewritten as
co, cl
2 ⎛ ⎞2
1 u pm
⎝ λ ⎠
neco, cl
= nL − √ (2)
ff 2 π nL deco, cl
ff
where the exponents co and cl indicate the capillary linked to the core and the cladding, respectively;
co, cl
n L the refractive index of inner medium made of air (n L = n air = 1) ; the coefficient u pm is the m-th
104
Fibers 2018, 6, 42
zero of the Bessel function J p (u pm ) = 0, with p = n for vector modes and p = l + 1 for linearly
polarized modes. The effective diameter decof f = f co × D or declf f = f cl × d is the inner diameter of the
capillary. The coefficients f co and f cl are used to adjust the value of diameters d and D in order to
match the analytical values from Equation (2) to the numerical results of finite-element simulations.
In Figure 2a, are plotted the fitted values for each ARE01 air-capillary mode (red dashed curves)
calculated using Equation (2) with the fitting coefficients f cl reported in Table 1. Analytical and
numerical computed values are in excellent agreement. The dependence of the coefficient f cl with
respect to the dimensionless parameter d Nested /d can be related to the space filling rate of the nested
capillaries inside the outer ones. Indeed we observe in Figure 2a that the more the nested capillary
diameter increases, the more the effective index of theARE01 air-capillary mode decreases with both
parameters D and d held constant. According to (2), the combination of two nested capillaries can
then be defined by a single capillary with an effective diameter of smaller size. For the HE11 core
mode, the effective index value showing a very low variation at constant core diameter (D = 30 μm),
the application of Equation (2) allows by taking the average of the effective indices for each value
of d Nested /d to find a constant value of the fitting coefficient f co equal to 1.07. We verified that this
increase in core diameter by 7% can be applied to the first four higher-order core modes and found
even, odd
that the effective indices of the HE21 , TM01 and TE01 core modes in NANFs match the effective
indices of the modes in the corresponding capillary with a precision of order to 10−5 . At the avoided
crossing point of the coupled modes, the equivalence of effective indices between the TE01 core mode
and ARE01 air-capillary mode by using Equation (2) allows to derive a simple expression for the
d/D parameter
cl
d u11 f co
necof f = neclf f ⇒ = · (3)
D th u01 f cl (d Nested /d)
co
in which the value of coefficient f cl (d Nested /d) depends on the value of the ratio d Nested /d.
The calculated theoretical values of (d/D )th from Equation (3) are summarized in Table 1 and are in
good agreement with the (d/D )max values obtained from finite-element modeling. Thus, the analytical
model based on coupled capillaries can be extended to NANFs and allows a simple prediction of the
avoided crossing between the higher-order core modes and the air-capillary modes.
4. Conclusions
We investigated numerically and analytically the effect of nested thin-walled capillaries on the
modal properties of a hollow-core fiber consisting of a single ring of six non-touching capillaries of
the same wall thickness, mounted inside a thick-walled glass capillary. We observed a dependence
with respect to the dimensionless parameter d Nested /d on the (d/D )max value at which the resonant
coupling between the higher-order core modes and an air-capillary mode, characterized by an avoided
crossing and an extremely high degree of HOM suppression, is optimal. This leads to the possibility
of designing a large range of NANFs with optimal transmission performances. However, we have
noted that a high degree of mode suppression does not necessarily mean that the fibre is single-mode.
The NANFs will perform effectively as a single-mode fiber, when the loss of the HOM are significantly
higher (>30 dB/m) than that of the fundamental mode, for fiber lengths of a few meters. For values
of d Nested /d < 0.30, the NANFs can then tend towards a single-mode behavior, with performance
in confinement loss superior to ARFs, for the fundamental mode. However, this type of NANFs
seem much more difficult to fabricate than ARFs, compared to attempts made for at least three years.
Indeed, for NANFs with a core diameter between 30 μm and 50 μm, the nested capillary diameters
will not exceed 10 μm when d Nested /d < 0.30, with the same wall-thickness as the outer capillaries
of dimensions smaller than or of the order of micrometer. Therefore, there is a trade-off between
transmission performance and technological difficulties related to fiber design.
105
Fibers 2018, 6, 42
Funding: This work is supported in part by the “Conseil Régional de Bretagne” and the “Fonds Européen de
Développement Economique des Régions”.
Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank Thierry Taunay for useful discussions throughout the work.
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20. Saitoh, K.; Florous, N.J.; Murao, T.; Koshiba, M. Design of photonic band gap fibers with suppressed
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c 2018 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
107
fibers
Article
Understanding Dispersion of Revolver-Type
Anti-Resonant Hollow Core Fibers
Matthias Zeisberger 1 , Alexander Hartung 1 and Markus A. Schmidt 1,2,3, *
1 Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Albert-Einstein-Str. 9, 07745 Jena, Germany;
matthias.zeisberger@leibniz-ipht.de (M.Z.); alexander.hartung@leibniz-ipht.de (A.H.)
2 Otto Schott Institute of Materials Research (OSIM), Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Fraunhoferstr. 6,
07743 Jena, Germany
3 Abbe Center of Photonics and Faculty of Physics, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1,
07743 Jena, Germany
* Correspondence: markus.schmidt@leibniz-ipht.de; Tel.: +49-3641-206-140
Received: 24 August 2018; Accepted: 14 September 2018; Published: 20 September 2018
Abstract: Here, we analyze the dispersion behavior of revolver-type anti-resonant hollow core fibers,
revealing that the chromatic dispersion of this type of fiber geometry is dominated by the resonances
of the glass annuluses, whereas the actual arrangement of the anti-resonant microstructure has a
minor impact. Based on these findings, we show that the dispersion behavior of the fundamental core
mode can be approximated by that of a tube-type fiber, allowing us to derive analytic expressions
for phase index, group-velocity dispersion and zero-dispersion wavelength. The resulting equations
and simulations reveal that the emergence of zero group velocity dispersion in anti-resonant fibers
is fundamentally associated with the adjacent annulus resonance which can be adjusted mainly via
the glass thickness of the anti-resonant elements. Due to their generality and the straightforward
applicability, our findings will find application in all fields addressing controlling and engineering of
pulse dispersion in anti-resonant hollow core fibers.
Keywords: fiber optics; fiber design and fabrication; microstructured fibers; anti-resonant fibers
1. Introduction
Hollow core fibers (HCFs) allow for efficiently guiding light and are intensively investigated since
they allow for accessing previously inaccessible fields for fiber optics or to substantially improve
device performance within areas such as mid-IR gas lasers [1,2], broadband light sources [3,4],
nonlinear optical effects [5], high-power pulse delivery [6], gas and liquid analytics [7,8], and pulse
compression [9]. A comprehensive overview on HCFs can be found in Ref. [10]. Particular anti-resonant
HCFs (ARHCFs) have recently gained substantial attraction by the Fiber Optics community since they
uniquely combine low optical loss and cladding microstructures that demand only moderate fabrication
efforts compared to more sophisticated fiber geometries such as photonic band gap HCFs [11–19].
The ARHCF geometry that is mostly addressed during recent times is the single-ring anti-resonant or
revolver-type fiber (RTF) geometry [20–25], consisting of a finite number of thin-walled non-touching
glass tubes arranged in a circle at constant azimuthal distances (Figure 1). This arrangement is
mechanically stabilized by joining the individual tubes to the inner wall of a supporting capillary.
As the guided field is concentrated in the core region, the supporting capillary plays a minor role for the
optical properties in particular for the dispersion, and therefore we neglect it in our model. Each tube
supports a well-defined number of modes (so-called annulus resonances), allowing for efficiently
guiding light in the central fiber section in case these modes are not phase-matched to the core mode,
i.e., core and annulus modes are anti-resonant. As a result, these glass annuluses are typically refereed
to as anti-resonant elements (ARE) [24]. The anti-resonant effect relies on the interference of the two

Fibers 2018, 6, 68
waves reflected at the inner and outer annulus interface, leading to low-loss transmission bands that
are spectrally limited by annulus resonances [26]. It is important to note that already the most generic
type of ARHCF geometry—the tube-type fiber (TTF, Figure 2) geometry—qualitatively shows all key
features of an ARHCF, namely strong resonances imposed by the ARE-modes and a characteristic loss
evolution within the transmission bands. This approximation was utilized by several authors [27–30]
to simulate complex ARHCF structures on the basis of the properties of the TTF geometry. Recent
experiments involving improved designs of RTFs indicate that these types of fibers show off-resonance
losses as low as 7.7 dB/km within various spectral domains [31], making it highly attractive for
numerous applications.
One particular striking application that has recently attracted substantial attention is nonlinear
light generation in gas-filled HCFs due to low damage thresholds, high output energy densities and
the possibility for spectrally tuning the output light via pressure modification [3,4,32]. In addition
to sufficiently high nonlinearities, precise control on chromatic dispersion is essential to efficiently
generate supercontinua from ultrashort optical pulses [33]. Within soliton-based supercontinuum
generation, the key parameter to be controlled is the group velocity dispersion (GVD), which needs
to be designed such that the used ultrashort pulse does not significantly disperse over the nonlinear
length and that solitons of higher orders are supported. A straightforward-to-access design parameter
which is widely used throughout the ultrafast nonlinear community is the wavelength at which
the GVD vanishes—the so-called zero-dispersion wavelength (ZDW)—which needs to be carefully
adjusted with respect to the pump laser wavelength to allow for efficient supercontinuum generation.
In this work, we present a detailed numerical and analytical study on the dependence of important
dispersion parameters on all relevant structural parameters of the RTF geometry. We found that the
behaviors of phase index, GVD and ZDW are dominated by the annulus resonances (i.e., ARE wall
thickness) while the actual shape of the ARE-based cladding plays only a minor role. These findings
allowed us to approximate the mentioned dispersion parameters by those of the most generic type of
ARHCF, the TTF geometry, which was numerically confirmed for all practically relevant situations.
Using an interface reflection model to approximate the phase index of the TTF geometry, analytic
expressions for the mentioned dispersion parameters were obtained, allowing us to gain fundamental
insights into the dispersion behavior of the ARHCF geometry.

Figure 1. (a) illustration of the revolver-type anti-resonant hollow core fiber (RTF) geometry considered
here: the fiber consists of six annulus-type anti-resonant elements (blue area) arranged around the
central core region (indicted by the black dashed line); (b) cross section of that structure with all
relevant geometric parameters. The annuluses are made from a dielectric material (typically silica
glass), whereas a medium with a lower refractive index (typically gas) is located elsewhere.
109
Fibers 2018, 6, 68

Figure 2. (a) sketch of the tube-type anti-resonant hollow core fiber (TTF) geometry that is used to
approximate the dispersion properties of RTFs (a cross section of this geometry including the relevant
parameters in shown in (b)). This structure is composed of a thin annulus of dielectric material
containing a low index medium in the core and the most outer region.
2. Analytical Equations for GVD and ZDW

Before comparing the modal properties of RTF and TTF geometries, we would like to introduce
the analytical model that allows approximating the chromatic dispersion of TTFs by an analytic
expression. As shown by Marcatili et al. [34], the real part of the effective index ne f f (i.e., phase index)
of a capillary can be expressed as ne f f = 1 − aλ2 in case the capillary bore diameter is much larger than
the operation wavelength λ (the parameter a depends on core radius, and mode order). The related
GVD Dλ = −(λ/c) d2 ne f f /dλ2 (c speed of light in vacuum) only weakly depends on wavelength and,
in case material dispersion is neglected, yielding an entirely analytic form Dλ = 2aλ/c. In contrast,
the phase index of the ARHCF geometry includes an additional resonance term resulting from the
interference of the waves reflected at the two glass/air interfaces, causing the GVD to strongly differ
from that of a capillary particular close to the resonances [26]. For the TTF geometry (Figure 2), the
spectral positions of the annulus resonances mostly depend on wall thickness w and on the refractive
indices of ring and inner and outer media ns and n a , respectively: λ R = (2w/l )(n2s − n2a )1/2 with
l = 1, 2, ... being the annulus resonance order. The same relation was reported for the RTF geometry
by Uebel [24], which already indicates similarities between TTF and RTF geometries. In [26], we
reported an approximate analytical model for the chromatic dispersion of the TTF geometry in case
the core radius R is much larger than the operation wavelength λ (i.e., λ/R 1). This model is
based on a series expansion of the complex effective index with respect to λ/R up to the fourth power.
For the discussion presented in this work, we are not addressing losses but chromatic dispersion only,
allowing us to neglect the fourth power term that is solely related to modal attenuation and resulting
in a real-valued analytic expression of the phase index (see Zeisberger for details [26]) as follows:
ne f f (λ) = n a (λ) − AF (λ)λ2 − BE(λ)C (λ)λ3 . (1)
The parameters indicated by the capital letters are given as follows:
1 n s ( λ )2 + n a ( λ )2
F (λ) = , E(λ) = , (2)
n a (λ) n a ( λ )3 n s ( λ )2 − n a ( λ )2

W
C (λ) = cot φ, φ = , W = 2πw n s ( λ )2 − n a ( λ )2 , (3)
λ
110
Fibers 2018, 6, 68
whereas particular emphasis should be placed on the parameter C that includes a cot-function. The
parameter φ represents the accumulated phase of the waves propagating from the outer to the inner
(or vice versa) interface of the ARE. For the fundamental mode (HE11 mode), the constants are
2
j01 2
j01
A= 2 2
, B= , j01 = 2.40. (4)
8π R 16π 3 R3
The refractive index of the medium in the core and the outer region n a can either be that of air
or, in the context of supercontinuum generation, argon or another low index medium. It is important
to note that the strand resonances are included in the factor C (λ) and are located at the phases with
the values φ = lπ (l = 1, 2, ...). The corresponding GVD (i.e., dispersion parameter) is obtained by
taking the second derivative of the phase index with respect to wavelength Dλ = −(λ/c)d2 ne f f /dλ2 .
As mentioned in the introduction section, key parameters for controlling nonlinear light generation
in waveguides are GVD and ZDW, which need to be adjusted appropriately. In the following, we
use Equation (1) to derive analytic expressions for both parameters. Compared to the factors λ2 , λ3 ,
and C (λ), the factors F (λ) and E(λ) show a negligible dependence on λ, allowing us to treat them
as wavelength-independent constants throughout the remaining part of the manuscript. We have
checked this approximation numerically for the wavelength range 0.4–2.0 μm using the material data
of argon and silica and found a deviation of less than 3% between the approximation and the exact
values. The first term of Equation (1) describes the material dispersion of the core medium, which
we approximate in the following by a Cauchy model that fits very well to the properties of argon for
wavelengths around 1 μm (see Appendix A for details):
b
n a (λ) ≈ a + . (5)
λ2
Here, the term b/λ2 accounts for the material dispersion of the low index medium. In combination
with Equations (2)–(5), Equation (1) yields an analytic expression for the GVD of the TTF geometry:

6b 2AFλ 2BE W 2 cos φ(λ) 2Wλ 3λ2 cos φ(λ)
Dλ = − + + + + . (6)
cλ3 c c sin φ(λ)
3
sin φ(λ)
2 sin φ(λ)
The first term in Equation (6) represents the contribution of the core medium (e.g., argon),
the second term is the same as for a capillary, and the last term is associated with the annulus
resonances. Equation (6) clearly shows that, in contrast to step-index fibers and capillaries, the TTF
geometry shows a sophisticated dispersion behavior and provides more degrees of freedom for
tuning GVD and ZDW. In fact, this is a result of the annulus resonances causing strong variations of
d2 ne f f /dλ2 upon λ including positive and negative values particularly close to the resonances. As the
main features of the fiber discussed here are related to the resonances, we derive an approximation of
Equation (6) for wavelengths close to the resonances. The first step is to use the phase φ rather than λ
as variable, i.e., λ is substituted by φ using Equation (3):

6bφ3 2AFW 2BEW 2 cos φ 2 3 cos φ
Dλ = − + + + + . (7)
cW 3 cφ c sin3 φ φ sin2 φ φ2 sin φ
Values of the phase φ being close to the resonances can be expressed as φ = lπ − Δφ with the
off-resonance parameter |Δφ| 1. With this assumption, the following approximations can be applied
cos φ 1
≈ − 3 , φ ≈ lπ, φ4 ≈ l 4 π 4 , (8)
sin3 φ Δφ
111
Fibers 2018, 6, 68
resulting in the following approximation for the GVD of the TTF geometry:

6bl 3 π 3 2AFW 2BEW 2 1 2 3
Dλ = − + − − + 2 2 . (9)
cW 3 clπ c Δφ3 lπΔφ2 l π Δφ
With this approximation, the Δφ value related to the ZDW can be straightforwardly obtained
from the condition Dλ = 0 resulting in the following criterion for zero dispersion:
1/3 −1/3
BEWlπ 3bl 4 π 4
ΔφZD = 1− . (10)
AF AFW 4
With Equations (2)–(4), we obtain the following relation for the off-resonance parameter value
corresponding to the ZDW:
1/3
n2 + n2 w 3l 4 π 2 na b R2
ΔφZD = lπ s 2 a 1− . (11)
na R 2j01 (ns − n a ) w2 w2
2 2 2 2
The related wavelength, i.e., the ZDW can be obtained using Equation (3), leading to

2πw n2s − n2a
λ ZD = . (12)
lπ − ΔφZD
It is interesting to note that the calculation above results in a positive value of Δφ.
With Equation (12), this results in values of the ZDW being larger than the related resonance
wavelength, which is given by

2w
λR = n2s − n2a . (13)
l
The related anti-resonance wavelength, which is defined by the criterion φ = (π/2)(2l − 1) and
l = 1, 2, ..., is given by

4w
λA = n2s − n2a . (14)
2l − 1
Equations (11) and (12) clearly suggest that the spectral position of the ZDW is associated with
that of the corresponding annulus resonance, which is evident by taking the ratio between ZDW and
annulus resonance wavelength of the same order λ R /λ ZD = 1 − ΔφZD /lπ. The relation between
resonances and ZDW can also be regarded from a more general point of view. Besides the resonance
regions, the fibers regarded here show approximately the same dispersion ne f f (λ) as an empty capillary
with d2 ne f f /dλ2 < 0. Therefore, zero GVD, which corresponds to an inflection point d2 ne f f /dλ2 =
0 of the dispersion, requires an additional contribution with a sufficiently large positive value of
d2 ne f f /dλ2 . According to the Kramers–Kronig relation, every loss peak at a certain wavelength is
related to a Lorentzian shaped dispersion with d2 ne f f /dλ2 > 0 above the resonance wavelength.
3. Dependence of Dispersion on Number and Diameter of AREs

Compared to TTFs, the RTF geometry has two additional geometric parameters, namely the
number N and the diameter d of the AREs, which might have a strong impact on chromatic dispersion.
Using a finite element mode solver (FEM, COMSOL, simulation details are presented in Ref. [35]),
we simulated the spectral dependence of the phase index of the fundamental HE11 -mode for a range
of N and d values of the RTF geometry (Figure 3, N = 5, 6, 7; annulus 5 μm < d < 25 μm) assuming
a constant strand width of w = 0.5 μm, and material data of silica [36] and argon [37]. Remarkably,
both ne f f (λ) and Dλ (λ) only show a weak dependence on both geometric parameters within the
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Fibers 2018, 6, 68
investigated parameter range. In particular, the spectral evolutions of the GVDs strongly overlap across
the entire bandwidth of the transmission band. Only in close proximity to the annulus resonances,
differences are observed for small ARE diameters, showing that varying N and d mostly imposes a
constant offset to the phase index, which is irrelevant for the GVD as it is correlated to the second
derivative of ne f f with respect to wavelength. These results also show that the ZDW is mostly
independent of N and d within practically relevant parameters’ ranges, which has obvious implication
on design issue related to ultrashort pulse propagation. Together with the results presented later,
these findings suggest that chromatic dispersion in RTFs is dominated by the impact of the strand
resonances and hardly depends on the specific properties of the actual AREs used, suggesting that the
dispersion behavior of the RTF geometry is identical to that of the most generic type of anti-resonant
fiber geometry, the TTF geometry. Since the core diameters of ARHCFs are substantially larger than
the wavelengths considered, the above-derived analytic expressions for ne f f and Dλ (λ) can be applied
as confirmed in [26]. The resulting spectral evolutions calculated using Equations (1) and (6) (lines in
Figure 3) overlap with the numerically obtained RTF results almost across the entire bandwidth of the
transmission bands, whereas the match is particularly good for the GVD. An even better agreement is
achieved when including a core diameter correction factor f that slightly increases the core radius R
(as proposed in Ref. [24]) to account for the penetration of the core mode into the gaps between the
AREs (here f = 1.08). It is important to note that such kind of agreement and independence on N and
d is not achieved for the imaginary part of the complex effective index, which strongly depends on the
microstructure used as shown in numerous works [20,22,31]. However, here we are only interested in
the dispersion properties, i.e., in the real part of the effective index.
Figure 3. Spectral distributions of the real part of the effective index (top row) and of the group velocity
dispersion (bottom row) for (a,b) different ARE diameters d (N = 6) as well as (c,d) different numbers
of AREs N (d = 20 μm). The symbols represent the results from the numerical FEM simulations
considering an RTF, whereas the lines are calculated by the analytic TTF model (Equations (1) and (6))
taking into account an effective core radius parameter of f = 1.08). For all data sets, we used
2R = 30 μm, w = 0.5 μm, and material data of silica [36] and argon [37].
4. Dependence on the Core Radius

As a next step, we numerically investigate the dependence of phase index and GVD of the
fundamental mode of the RTF geometry on a central core radius (Figure 4) while keeping the annulus
parameters fixed (w = 0.5 μm, d = 20 μm, n = 6, refractive index distribution as for Figure 3).
113
Fibers 2018, 6, 68
As expected, the spectral distributions of both ne f f (λ) and Dλ (λ) strongly change in case the core
dimension is modified, with the evolutions provided by our TTF model (solid lines in Figure 4)
matching the numerical results particularly good within the transmission bands (dots in Figure 4).
Deviations between model and numerics are only visible towards the long-wavelength side of the
transmission band. The GVD-evolutions that do not include the core diameter correction factor ( f = 1)
already show excellent overlaps between TTF model and numerics (Figure 4b,d), whereas an improved
match is achieved for the phase index when using f = 1.08 (Figure 4c,d). It is important to note that
in case the strand resonances are neglected in the TTF calculations (i.e., neglecting the λ3 -term in
Equation (1)), no match between model and numerics is achieved. This is, for instance, highly visible
in the spectral distributions of the GVD (insets in Figure 4b,d), which never crosses the zero within the
spectral domain considered here.
Figure 4. Spectral distributions of real part of the effective index (top row) and group velocity dispersion
(bottom row) for different central core diameters of 2R = 25 − 45 μm (a,b) excluding and (c,d) including
the core diameter correction factor). The symbols represent data from the FEM simulations of the RTF
geometry (d = 20 μm, w = 0.5 μm, N = 6), and the lines are calculated from the analytical equations
for TTF (Equations (1) and (6), refractive indices defined in the caption of Figure 3). The two insets in
(b,d) show the corresponding GVD distributions in case the resonance term in Equation (1) is ignored.
Due to its importance in nonlinear photonics and ultrashort pulse propagation, we take a closer
look into the behavior of the ZDW in the following. Assuming the geometry considered above
(w = 0.5 μm, n = 6), we have calculated the dependence of the ZDW on central core radius
(Figure 5a) numerically from the FEM data of the RTF geometry, from the analytic expression of
the GVD of the TTF model (Equation (7)), and by using the approximate equation for the ZDW
(Equation (12)). Here, the TTF model (blue symbols in Figure 5a) accurately follows the evolution of
the FEM simulations (dark blue symbols in Figure 5a), with the ZDWs matching within a spectral
interval <2 nm. The analytic expression (Equation (12)) yields the correct trend, with a deviation of
the ZDWs of about 8 nm. Considering that the transmission band has a spectral bandwidth of about
300 nm (see, e.g., Figure 4), this 8 nm difference yields a relative spectral deviation of about 2.5%,
which yields an accuracy that is better than can be achieved in fabrication. In addition, we have also
calculated the ZDW using Equations (1) and (11) within different bands, i.e., for different annulus
resonance orders (Figure 5b) and plotted them together with the wavelengths of the related resonance
(assuming Δφ = 0 in Equation (12)) in Figure 5b. It is interesting to see that the ZDWs are always
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Fibers 2018, 6, 68
located at slightly longer wavelength compared to the corresponding resonance, which is a result
of the small positive values of Δφ, i.e., Δφ > 0 and |Δφ| 1. From the practical perspective, the
most important parameter that allows for adjusting the spectral positions of annulus resonances is
the respective ring width, since λ R ∝ w (see Equation (12) in case Δφ = 0). As a result, increasing the
ring width for a constant core diameter imposes the ZDW to increase accordingly (inset of Figure 5b),
again emphasizing that the emergence of a ZDW in one transmission band is a result of the presence
of the annulus resonance.
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Figure 5. (a) dependence of the zero-dispersion wavelength on central core diameter (w = 0.5 μm).
The three curves show the evolutions from the numerical FEM calculations (red) for n = 6 and d = 20 μm,
the TTF model (Equation (6), gray) and the expression that approximate the ZDW (Equation (12),
green); (b) ZDW vs. annulus resonance order (yellow: TTF model; green: approximate expression
(Equation (12))). The cyan symbols show the related annulus resonance (according to Equation (13)).
The connecting lines are only guides to the eye. The inset shows the dependence of the ZDW in case
the ring thickness is changed (2R= 50 μm) for the three lowest resonance orders (solid lines: analytic
equation (Equation (6); dashed lines: model (Equation (12)); dotted lines: corresponding resonance
(Equation (13)). The colors refer to the different resonance orders (indicated by the respective numbers).
Both plots assume argon and silica as gas and glass, respectively, and do not include the core diameter
correction factor (i.e., f = 1.0).
5. Discussion
The key finding of this work is that Re(ne f f ) and Dλ (λ) of the TTF geometry fit extremely
well to the related quantities of the RTF geometry, suggesting that chromatic dispersion in ARHCF
has a generic origin and is not related to a specific cladding microstructure. Here we believe that
this coincidence, which is not obvious from the first view, is associated with the following reasoning:
as shown in our previous work [26], the dispersion properties of the TTF geometry can by approximated
to a very high degree by considering the reflection of a wave on a planar three-layer-system (e.g.,
here Ar/SiO2 /Ar) under nearly grazing incidence in the situation in which the core diameter is
much larger than the operation wavelength. Here, we believe that the local fields at the surface
of the individual ARE can be treated in a similar way, i.e., that the reflection process of an ARE is
principally identical to that happening at a planar interface. Varying w/λ modifies the phase of the
reflected wave accordingly, imposing a corresponding variation in the phase of the guided wave, i.e.,
in Re(ne f f ). This basic principle is in fact independent on the shape of the core-cladding boundary,
suggesting that the dispersion behavior of the RTF geometry is dominated by the impact of the annulus
resonances. The main difference between the TTF and the RTF geometry lies in local fields around
the core circumference, which mostly impacts losses but not dispersion. In Ref. [29], an empirical
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Fibers 2018, 6, 68
formula is presented that also provides an extension of the capillary dispersion [34] with a resonance
term that includes empirical parameters. Equation (2) from [29] and Equation (1) from this paper
can be transformed into the same mathematical form using approximations for a large core radius
(R λ) and a small off-resonance parameter |Δφ| 1. In this context, our results provide absolute
values with analytical expressions for the strength of the resonance terms that are empirical parameters
in Ref. [29]. From the practical perspective, it is important to know the modal losses in the spectral
vicinity of the ZDWs. Our results show that the ZDW present in one transmission band is located
in-between the anti-resonance and the related strand resonance wavelengths (λ R < λ ZD < λ A ). This
is consistent with the results presented in Ref. [38] where Figure 3 shows that the ZDWs are located
slightly above the resonance wavelengths, which corresponds to 0 < ΔφZD 1 in terms of the
work presented here. We checked all data from our FEM simulations performed in the context of
this paper and found very low losses when operating close to the ZDW, whereas more sophisticated
microstructures such as nested AREs yield even lower loss [23]. In the context of practical applications,
the effect of geometric non-uniformity can be relevant. According to our model, the fiber dispersion
can be interpreted as a combination of two effects, the dispersion of a hollow waveguide with a
perfectly reflecting boundary (the first two terms in Equation (1)), and the impact of the resonances
(the third term in Equation (1)). According to our model, we expect for an RTF with non-uniform wall
thickness a corresponding modification of the resonances. Depending on the nature of the geometric
non-uniformity, e.g., a discrete or a continuous distribution of the thickness w, we expect several
discrete resonances or a broadening of the resonance, changing the overall dispersion. A detailed
investigation of this effect ought to be verified by simulations, which is beyond the scope of this paper.
The observed behaviors of phase index, GVD, and ZDW being dominated by the annulus resonances
(i.e., ARE wall thickness), were also qualitatively found in reported experiments [39]. Even though
a direct comparison to the experimental results is unfeasible due to the strand thickness variations
across one fiber cross section and the additional struts in the experimentally investigated fiber, the key
qualitative features (observation of one ZDW in one transmission band and the bending of the spectral
distribution of the GVD in close proximity to the strand resonance) are also found experimentally,
which clearly shows that the dispersion of the measured fiber is dominated by the strand resonances.
Please note that the TTF-model presented here applies only to fibers with well-defined resonances that
are imposed by the strands of the AREs. Photonic band gap HCFs, for instance, only exhibit a small
number of transmission bands (in most cases, only one), which are separated by a comparably large
spectral interval. The spectral positions of the high loss intervals cannot be described by the resonance
of Equation (1) given in this work, i.e., by single strand resonances, with the consequence that the
application of our model to photonic band gap HCFs is not possible.
6. Conclusions
Precise knowledge on modal dispersion is relevant for all applications involving the propagation
of short pulses in optical waveguides and is particularly important within areas such as nonlinear
photonics and ultrashort pulse delivery. Here, we show a detailed study of the dispersion behavior of
RTFs, revealing that the resonances provided by the thin-walled annulus of the AREs surrounding the
central core dominate the chromatic dispersion. Specifically, we found that the spectral distributions
of phase index and GVD strongly depend on central core diameter and annulus width, whereas the
modal behavior is almost independent of diameter and number of AREs used. One of the key findings
of this work is that the dispersion properties (i.e., phase index and GVD) of the RTF geometry match
those provided by a corresponding TTF. We derived analytic expressions for phase index and GVD
that both match the corresponding features of the RTF geometry for all practically relevant situations,
whereas a particular good match is obtained for the GVD. We also derived an analytic expression
for the ZDW showing that each transmission band owns one ZDW, which is spectrally located in
between the annulus resonance and the anti-resonance wavelengths. Moreover, the derived equations
suggest that the emergence of one ZDW in one band is associated with the presence of one resonance,
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Fibers 2018, 6, 68
i.e., that the origin of the multiple ZDWs observed in the RTF geometry is solely related to annulus
resonances that are formed by the interference within the thin glass membrane. As a result of these
facts, we strongly believe that both the TTF model and the analytic expressions for GVD and ZDW
yield straightforward-to-use design tools that are relevant for the development of future RTFs for
applications in nonlinear photonics, ultrafast light transportation and any application that demands
controlling pulse dispersion in ARHCFs.
Author Contributions: M.Z. performed the analytical calculations, and A.H. the FEM simulations; M.A.S.
prepared the graphics; The manuscript was written by M.Z. and M.A.S.
Funding: This research was funded by German Research Foundation (Grant SCHM2655/6-1, SCHM2655/8-1);
Thuringian State Projects (2015FGI0011, 2015-0021, 2016FGR0051); European Regional Development Fund (ERDF);
European Social Funds (ESF).
Appendix A
Figure A1. Spectral distribution of the GVD of argon calculated from empirical data (symbols) [37]
and from Equation (A1) (line).
As shown in [37] the material dispersion of argon can be approximated by a Sellmeier expression.
In case the operation wavelength is of the order of 1 μm this expression can further be approximated
by first order series expansion with respect to λ−2 resulting in the Cauchy expression presented in
Equation (5) with a = 1.00028 and b = 1.507 · 10−6 from which the following expression for the GVD
of argon is obtained.
λ d2 n a 6b
Dλ = − =− 3 (A1)
c d λ2 cλ
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c 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
119
fibers
Article
Geometry of Chalcogenide Negative Curvature Fibers
for CO2 Laser Transmission
Chengli Wei 1 , Curtis R. Menyuk 2 and Jonathan Hu 1, *
1 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, USA;
cwei@umhb.edu
2 Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland Baltimore County,
Baltimore, MD 21227, USA; menyuk@umbc.edu
* Correspondence: jonathan_hu@baylor.edu; Tel.: +1-254-710-1853
Received: 12 July 2018; Accepted: 27 September 2018; Published: 30 September 2018
Abstract: We study the impact of geometry on leakage loss in negative curvature fibers made with
As2 Se3 chalcogenide and As2 S3 chalcogenide glasses for carbon dioxide (CO2 ) laser transmission.
The minimum leakage loss decreases when the core diameter increases both for fibers with six and
for fibers with eight cladding tubes. The optimum gap corresponding to the minimum loss increases
when the core diameter increases for negative curvature fibers with six cladding tubes. For negative
curvature fibers with eight cladding tubes, the optimum gap is always less than 20 μm when the core
diameter ranges from 300 μm to 500 μm. The influence of material loss on fiber loss is also studied.
When material loss exceeds 102 dB/m, it dominates the fiber leakage loss for negative curvature fiber
at a wavelength of 10.6 μm.
Keywords: CO2 lasers; negative curvature fibers; chalcogenide glass; fiber loss; mid-IR
1. Introduction
Carbon dioxide (CO2 ) lasers have been widely used in surgery, medicine, and material
processing [1–3]. Step index fibers are commonly used to transmit CO2 laser light. The material loss
of silica glass in the mid-infrared limits the transmission of mid-infrared light using silica step-index
fibers. However, it is possible in principle to obtain a lower loss in hollow-core fiber than in step-index
fiber because air does not contribute to material loss [4,5]. In addition, the nonlinearity in the glass
sets a limit to the transmitted power. Hollow-core fibers have low nonlinearity, because the light is
mostly transmitted in air, which does not contribute to the nonlinearity. Recently, hollow-core negative
curvature fibers have drawn a large amount of interest due to their attractive properties including low
loss, broad bandwidth, and a high damage threshold [6–12]. The delivery of mid-infrared radiation has
also been demonstrated using chalcogenide negative curvature fibers for a CO2 laser at a wavelength
of 10.6 μm [13–15]. Previous study shows that chalcogenide glass should be used for wavelength larger
than 4.5 μm [16]. The relative simplicity of the negative curvature structure could enable the fabrication
of fiber devices for mid-IR applications using non-silica glasses, such as chalcogenide [13–15].
The guiding mechanism in negative curvature fibers is inhibited coupling [10,17,18]. A large
amount of research [10,19] has been carried out to determine the impact of fiber parameters on leakage
loss [20] in negative curvature fibers and then optimize these parameters to minimize the loss. These
parameters include the curvature of the core boundary, the thickness of the tubes, the number of
cladding tubes, and the nested cladding tubes [17,18,21–24]. By introducing a gap between cladding
tubes, the loss can be decreased in negative curvature fibers [24,25]. When the tubes touch, modes
exist in the localized node area. A gap between the cladding tubes removes the additional resonances
due to the localized node. Fibers with a gap between tubes are also expected to be easier to fabricate,
since surface tension would assist to maintain the circular shape of the tubes [22]. On the other

Fibers 2018, 6, 74
hand, when the gap is too big, the core mode can leak through the gaps, which increases the loss in
negative curvature fibers [26]. Therefore, an optimum gap exists. The optimal gap corresponding
to the minimum loss in a fiber with six cladding tubes is three times as large as the optimal gap in
fibers with eight or ten cladding tubes [26]. In a fiber with six cladding tubes, a larger gap is needed to
remove the weak coupling between the core mode and tube modes [26].
In previous studies, the optimum gap was found in negative curvature fibers with a fixed core
diameter [26]. Chalcogenide negative curvature fibers with different core diameters of 170 μm to
380 μm have been fabricated [13–15]. In this paper, we find optimal structures of chalcogenide negative
curvature fibers for CO2 laser transmission, in which we minimize the loss in the two-dimensional
parameter space that consists of the core diameter and the gap size. In previous studies, the optimum
gap was found in negative curvature fibers with a fixed core diameter [26]. We find that the minimum
leakage loss decreases when the core diameter increases both for fibers with six and for fibers with
eight cladding tubes. The optimum gap increases when the core diameter increases for negative
curvature fibers with six cladding tubes. The optimum gap is always less than 20 μm when the core
diameter increases for negative curvature fibers with eight cladding tubes when the core diameter
ranges from 300 to 500 μm. We find optimal structures of chalcogenide negative curvature fibers for
CO2 laser transmission, in which we minimize the loss in the two-dimensional parameter space that
consists of the core diameter and the gap size.
2. Geometry
Negative curvature fibers with six and eight cladding tubes have been fabricated by several
research groups [17,25,27,28]. Figure 1 shows schematic illustrations of negative curvature fibers with
six and eight cladding tubes. The white regions represent air, and the gray regions represent glass.
The inner tube diameter, dtube , the core diameter, Dcore , the tube wall thickness, t, the minimum gap
between the cladding tubes, g, and the number of tubes, p, are related by the expression: Dcore =
(dtube + 2t + g)/sin(π/p) − (dtube + 2t) [29]. We calculate the leakage loss for negative curvature
fibers using Comsol Multiphysics, a commercial full-vector mode solver based on the finite-element
method. Perfectly matched layers are added outside the cladding region in order to reduce the size of
the simulation window [30]. The wavelength of 10.6 μm for a CO2 laser is used in our simulation.
Figure 1. Schematic illustration of negative curvature fibers with (a) six and (b) eight cladding tubes.
3. As2 Se3 Chalcogenide Glass

In this section, we study the loss in negative curvature fibers made with As2 Se3 chalcogenide
glass. We use a refractive index of 2.8 and a material loss of 10.6 dB/m for As2 Se3 chalcogenide glass in
our simulations [31]. The tube thickness, t, is fixed at 5.2 μm corresponding to the third antiresonance.
A glass thickness corresponding to the third antiresonance has been drawn in the past [15]. A thicker
tube wall with a higher-order antiresonance makes fabrication easier. Geometries that use tube
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Fibers 2018, 6, 74
thicknesses corresponding to the first, second, or third antiresonance have similar minimum losses
in the transmission band [16,26]. We first study negative curvature fibers with six cladding tubes.
We define d6max as the maximum possible tube diameter for the fiber with 6 cladding tubes, which
equals Dcore − 2t. Figure 2a shows the contour plot of loss as a function of core diameter, Dcore ,
and normalized tube diameter, dtube /d6max . For a fixed Dcore , the loss decreases and then increases
when dtube /d6max increases from 0.2 to 1.0. The minimum loss occurs when dtube /d6max = 0.62, and it
does not change when Dcore increases from 300 to 500 μm. The loss decreases when Dcore increases.
In addition, we show the loss as a function of the core diameter, Dcore , and the gap, g, in Figure 2b.
The loss first decreases and then increases as the gap, g, increases. When there is no gap, a mode exists
in the node that is created by the two touching tubes [25]. When the gap is too large, core mode leaks
through the gap [17,26]. Previous study shows that the electric field intensity in the middle of the gap
between cladding tubes can increase by a factor of 15 when the gap increases from 5 to 10 μm in a
silica negative curvature fiber with a glass index of 1.45 and a core diameter of 30 μm at a wavelength
of 1 μm [10]. Here, we study chalcogenide negative curvature fibers with a glass index of 2.8 at a
wavelength of 10.6 μm. The electric field intensity in the middle of the gap between cladding tubes
increases by a factor of 15 when the gap increases from 50 to 100 μm in a negative curvature fiber with
a core diameter of 300 μm. We also plot the loss as a function of gap, g, for different core diameters in
Figure 3a. In order to quantify the minimum loss and the corresponding optimum gap for different
core diameters, we also plot the minimum loss and the corresponding optimum gap, g, using blue solid
curve and red dashed curves, respectively, in Figure 3b. When the core diameter increases from 300 to
500 μm, the minimum loss decreases by more than one order of magnitude and the corresponding
optimum gap, g, increases from 60 to 90 μm. Hence, a larger gap is needed for a fiber with a larger
core diameter to decrease the loss in negative curvature fibers with six cladding tubes.
Figure 2. (a) Contour plot of loss as a function of core diameter and normalized tube diameter.
(b) Contour plot of loss as a function of core diameter and gap. The number of cladding tubes is six.
We next carry out the same loss analysis on negative curvature fibers with eight cladding tubes.
Figure 4a shows the contour plot of loss as a function of core diameter, Dcore , and normalized tube
diameter, dtube /d8max , where d8max is defined as the maximum possible tube diameter for the fiber
with 8 cladding tubes, which is Dcore sin(π/8)/[1 − sin(π/8)] − 2t [32]. Figure 4b shows the contour
plot of loss as a function of core diameter, Dcore , and gap, g. The minimum loss occurs at a larger
value of dtube /d8max , or a smaller value of g, than is the case for negative curvature fibers with six
cladding tubes. In Figure 5a, we show the loss as a function of the gap, g, for different core diameters.
The optimum gap corresponding to the minimum loss is less than 20 μm for fibers with different
core diameters and the loss increases slowly when gap further increases. The minimum loss and
the corresponding gap, g, are plotted using blue solid curve and red dashed curves, respectively,
in Figure 5b. The minimum loss decreases by around one order of magnitude when the core diameter
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Fibers 2018, 6, 74
increases from 300 to 500 μm. Different from fibers with six cladding tubes, the corresponding optimum
gap, g, is much smaller and is always less than 20 μm when the core diameter increases from 300 to
500 μm in fibers with eight cladding tubes. There is a wide range of gaps that realize low loss in the
fibers with eight cladding tubes, as shown in Figure 5a. The loss is less sensitive to the gap in the
region between 10 and 50 μm. Since the tube diameter is much smaller than the diameter of core, the
coupling between the core mode and tube modes is weak. It has been shown that the power ratio in
the air region of cladding tubes is always less than 0.1% in the negative curvature fiber with eight
cladding tubes, while the power ratio in tube air could be more than 0.8% for fibers with six cladding
tubes [26]. In negative curvature fibers with six cladding tubes, a larger gap is needed to remove the
weak coupling between the core and cladding tube modes.
Figure 3. (a) Loss as a function of gap in fibers with different core diameters. (b) Minimum loss and
the corresponding optimum gap in fibers with different core diameters. The number of cladding tubes
is six.
Figure 4. (a) Contour plot of loss as a function of core diameter and normalized tube diameter.
(b) Contour plot of loss as a function of the core diameter and gap. The number of cladding tubes
is eight.
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Figure 5. (a) Loss as a function of the gap in fibers with different core diameters. (b) Minimum loss and
the corresponding gap in fibers with different core diameters. The number of cladding tubes is eight.
4. As2 S3 Chalcogenide Glass

In this section, we carried out the same loss analysis in negative curvature fibers made with
As2 S3 chalcogenide glass. We use a refractive index of 2.4 and a material loss of 500 dB/m for As2 S3
chalcogenide glass in our simulations [15,16]. The tube thickness, t, is fixed at 6.1 μm corresponding
to the third antiresonance. Figure 6a shows the loss as a function of gap, g, when the core diameter
increases from 300 to 500 μm in As2 S3 chalcogenide fiber with six cladding tubes. Compared with the
loss in Figure 3a, the losses in the fiber using As2 S3 chalcogenide glass, shown in Figure 6a, are higher
and have a flatter minimum. In Figure 6b, we show the minimum loss and the corresponding gap, g,
as blue solid curve and red dashed curve, respectively. We also study the fiber leakage loss with and
without material loss in an As2 S3 chalcogenide fiber with six cladding tubes. In Figure 7a, we show the
results in order to explain the broad, low-loss region in Figure 6a. The core diameter is fixed at 300 μm.
The solid curve shows the fiber loss with material loss of 500 dB/m for As2 S3 chalcogenide glass,
which is the same as the blue solid curve in Figure 6a. The dashed curve shows the fiber loss without
material loss, which is similar to the curve in Figure 3a. The high material loss of As2 S3 chalcogenide
glass dominates and leads to a flat minimum in the fiber loss curve, as shown by the blue solid curve
in Figure 7a.
corresponding optimum gap in fibers with different core diameters. There are six cladding tubes.
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In order to better illustrate the influence of the material loss on the total fiber loss, we study the
fiber loss as a function of material loss both for As2 S3 chalcogenide glass and As2 Se3 chalcogenide
glass, shown in Figure 7b as the red dashed and blue solid curves, respectively. The core diameter is
300 μm and the gap is 60 μm. The fiber loss changes little when the material loss increases from 0.1 to
10 dB/m, and the fiber loss is dominated by the confinement loss in the blue region for both curves.
The loss of fiber that is made with As2 Se3 chalcogenide glass is located in the blue region, which is
marked with the blue circle on the blue solid curve. The fiber loss begins to increase when the material
loss increases from 10 to 102 dB/m, and the influence of the material loss becomes visible. When
the material loss further increases, the fiber loss increases sharply, and the fiber loss is dominated by
the material loss in the red region for both curves, when the material loss is higher than 102 dB/m.
The loss of fiber made with As2 S3 chalcogenide glass is located in the red region, which is marked
with the red triangle on the red dashed curve. Due to the inhibited coupling between the core mode
and glass modes, the power ratios in the glass of negative curvature fibers for the two points marked
by circle and triangle in Figure 7b are 0.0016% and 0.002%, respectively. With this low power ratio in
glass [33], the fiber leakage loss in negative curvature fibers is more than three orders of magnitude
lower than the material loss of glass, as shown in Figure 7b.
Figure 7. (a) Loss as a function of gap in fibers with and without material loss. (b) Fiber loss as a
function of material loss in As2 Se3 chalcogenide glass fiber and As2 S3 chalcogenide glass fiber with six
cladding tubes, a core diameter of 300 μm, and a gap of 60 μm.
Figure 8a shows the loss as a function of gap, g, in As2 S3 chalcogenide fiber with eight cladding
tubes. In Figure 8b, we show the minimum loss and the corresponding gap, g, using a blue solid curve
and a red dashed curve, respectively. The minimum loss decreases by less than one order of magnitude
and the corresponding optimum gap, g, is always less than 20 μm, which agrees with the results in the
As2 Se3 chalcogenide fiber with 8 cladding tubes. Small loss variation near zero gap occurs due to the
glass modes existed near the node area between two tubes in Figure 8a.
Chalcogenide negative curvature fibers with eight cladding tubes have been successfully
fabricated. The fiber loss was measured to be 2.1 dB/m at 10 μm for a fiber with a core diameter of
172 μm and a gap of 9 μm. Due to the structure distortion during fabrication, the losses of fabricated
fibers are two orders of magnitude higher than the losses in simulation, indicating there are room to
improve the fabrication [34]. The distortion of the negative curvature fiber structure has an evident
impact on the transmission window and the leakage loss [34]. We also observed higher-order modes
in the negative curvature fibers [35].
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corresponding gap in fibers with different core diameters. The number of cladding tube is eight.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, we optimize the structure of negative curvature fibers for CO2 laser transmission.
We investigate the impact of the size of the gap between cladding tubes on the loss of negative
curvature fibers made with As2 Se3 and As2 S3 chalcogenide glasses. For As2 Se3 chalcogenide fibers
with six cladding tubes, the minimum loss decreases by an order of magnitude and the corresponding
optimum gap, g, increases from 60 to 90 μm when the core diameter increases from 300 to 500 μm.
A greater gap is needed for a fiber with greater core diameter to reduce the coupling between the core
mode and tube mode. For a fiber with eight cladding tubes, the optimum gap, g, that corresponds to
the minimum loss is always less than 20 μm when the core diameter ranges from 300 to 500 μm. We
also study As2 S3 chalcogenide fibers, which has a higher material loss at a wavelength of 10.6 μm. It is
found that material loss dominates the fiber leakage loss. The fiber loss is dominated by the material
loss, when the material absorption loss is higher than 102 dB/m.
Author Contributions: Supervision, C.R.M. and J.H.; Validation, C.R.M. and J.H.; Writing: original draft, C.W.;
Writing: review and editing, C.W., C.R.M. and J.H.
Funding: Work at Baylor was supported by the National Science Foundation (ECCS-1809622). Work at UMBC
was supported by the Naval Research Laboratory.
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fibers
Article
Fabrication of Shatter-Proof Metal Hollow-Core
Optical Fibers for Endoscopic Mid-Infrared
Laser Applications
Katsumasa Iwai 1 , Hiroyuki Takaku 1 , Mitsunobu Miyagi 2 , Yi-Wei Shi 3 and Yuji Matsuura 4, *
1 National Institute of Technology, Sendai College, Sendai 989-3128, Japan; iwai@sendai-nct.ac.jp (K.I.);
info@do-ko.sakura.ne.jp (H.T.)
2 Headquarters, Miyagi Gakuin, Sendai 981-8557, Japan; mmiyagi@mgu.ac.jp
3 School of Information Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China;
ywshi@fudan.edu.cn
4 Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan
* Correspondence: yuji@ecei.tohoku.ac.jp; Tel.: +81-22-795-7108
Received: 27 March 2018; Accepted: 14 April 2018; Published: 18 April 2018
Abstract: A method for fabricating robust and thin hollow-core optical fibers that carry mid-infrared
light is proposed for use in endoscopic laser applications. The fiber is made of stainless steel tubing,
eliminating the risk of scattering small glass fragments inside the body if the fiber breaks. To reduce
the inner surface roughness of the tubing, a polymer base layer is formed prior to depositing silver
and optical-polymer layers that confine light inside the hollow core. The surface roughness is greatly
decreased by re-coating thin polymer base layers. Because of this smooth base layer surface, a uniform
optical-polymer film can be formed around the core. As a result, clear interference peaks are observed
in both the visible and mid-infrared regions. Transmission losses were also low for the carbon
dioxide laser used for medical treatments as well as the visible laser diode used for an aiming beam.
Measurements of bending losses for these lasers demonstrate the feasibility of the designed fiber for
endoscopic applications.
Keywords: hollow optical fiber; carbon dioxide laser; endoscopic laser applications
1. Introduction
Mid-infrared lasers are increasingly being used in medical applications because mid-infrared
light is strongly absorbed by the water, proteins, and lipids in human tissue. Mid-infrared lasers can
be used in combination with a flexible endoscope or catheter for minimally invasive treatments of
tumors and other diseased tissue. Such applications require an optical fiber that is sufficiently thin and
flexible for insertion into the working channel of endoscopes or thin catheters. The fiber must also be
able to deliver laser light to the target tissue with minimal transmission loss.
Common silica-glass fibers cannot transmit mid-infrared light with wavelengths longer than 2 μm
because of absorption in the silica-glass material [1], so many types of infrared optical fibers have
been developed, such as chalcogenide-glass fibers [2,3], metal-halide polycrystalline fibers [4,5],
and hollow-core optical fibers [6,7]. Hollow-core optical fibers that confine light in an air core have
some advantages over solid-core fibers for high-power laser delivery. Two types of hollow-core optical
fibers have been developed so far. One is composed of glass capillary tubing with a silver film on
the inside and a dielectric thin film on top of the silver [7–9] and this type of fiber is already used in
medical applications [10]. The other is made entirely of glass and utilizes photonic crystal structures to
confine light in the central air core [11,12].
Recently, an endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) process using a carbon dioxide (CO2 ) laser
has been developed for treating early-stage gastric cancer [13], and this process uses a hollow-glass

Fibers 2018, 6, 24
optical fiber to deliver the CO2 laser light. ESD is performed using a fiber (inner diameter 700 μm,
length 2.65 m) that transmits laser light with power up to 12 W. When using such a common hollow-core
optical fiber for endoscopic applications, a surgeon must be careful not to break the fiber by bending it
too sharply because the breakage may scatter small glass fragments inside the body. This damage could
be fatal. Glass shards can be avoided by using plastic tubing for the hollow-core optical fiber [14–16],
but the power capacity of plastic-based hollow fibers is usually lower than that of glass-based fibers,
especially when the fiber is bent.
Temelkuran et al. have developed a hollow waveguide with polymer dielectric multilayers that
confines light by Bragg reflection [17]. Although this type of fiber transmits CO2 laser light of relatively
high power with low losses [18], the chalcogenide material used for cladding may cause trouble in
endoscopic applications.
Another option for fabricating a robust and flexible hollow-core optical fiber is to use metal tubing
as the base material [19,20]. However, the inner surface of metal tubing is usually much rougher
than that of glass tubing, even after chemical etching. This roughness causes scattering loss of the
transmitted light. In clinical applications of infrared lasers, delivery of a visible targeting laser beam
along with mid-infrared laser is necessary to make the irradiated spot visible to the surgeon. When the
inner surface of the hollow core is relatively rough, the visible light is strongly scattered and does not
form a targeting dot.
In this paper, we propose a fabrication method for a stainless steel hollow-core optical fiber for
mid-infrared light. To reduce the roughness of the tubing inner surface, a polymer base layer is formed
before depositing a silver film. This base coating smooths the surface, and as a result, the transmission
loss is reduced for both CO2 laser light and visible light.
2. Material and Methods

Figure 1 shows a schematic of the proposed hollow-core optical fiber based on stainless-steel (SUS)
tubing. The fiber begins as commercially available SUS tubing with an electrochemically polished
inner surface. Although the root-mean-square (RMS) roughness of the surface is as low as 0.3 to 0.9 μm,
it still causes scattering losses, especially for visible light. To smooth the inner surface of the SUS
tubing, we form a relatively thick base coat of polymer on the surface. Then, a silver (Ag) film is coated
on top of the base layer using the silver mirror reaction. Then, another polymer layer is formed on the
top of silver layer and functions as an optical interference film. This polymer needs to be transparent
to mid-infrared light since this layer optically functions as a dielectric film, so we use cyclic olefin
polymer (COP) [21].
Figure 1. Schematic structure of the stainless-steel (SUS)-based hollow optical fiber.
As the base-coating material, a commonly used two-liquid-reaction acrylic-silicone resin (AlcoSP,

NATOCO, Aichi, Japan) was chosen. We chose this material partly because we found that it gives
excellent adhesion to the silver film formed on top of the base coating [22]. The resin solution was
made to flow through the SUS tubes (inner/outer diameter 550/780 μm) at 8 cm/min. Then nitrogen
gas was flushed through the tubes at the rate of 50 mL/min for 1 h at room temperature to dry the
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Fibers 2018, 6, 24
resin coating. By this coating process, the resin film with a thickness of around 0.5 μm is formed.
When forming the acrylic-silicone resin film, we found that re-coating several thin films yields a
smoother surface than the thick film formed with a single coating. Based on the results of preliminary
experiments, we chose a resin concentration of 45.5 wt % for the resin base coating.
Before the silver coating process, the surface of the resin layer was sensitized with SnCl2 solution
to increase the adhesion of Ag film. A silver film was formed on the base coat by passing silver nitrate
solution and reducing solution through the tube for 3 min. In the next step, we formed a COP thin
film on the top of silver layer. The silver layer is usually only around 0.2 μm thick, so the cyclohexane
solvent used to dissolve the COP may penetrate to the base layer through the thin silver film. In a
preliminary test of whether the cyclohexane solvent damages the base coat, we removed the COP
layer using cyclohexane and formed the COP again, comparing the loss spectra of the first and second
COP-coated fibers.
In the measurement of the loss spectra in the visible to near-infrared region from 0.4 to 1.6 μm
wavelength, of the fabricated fibers (550 μm inner diameter and 1 m length), an optical spectrum
analyzer was used (AQ6315A, Yokogawa, Tokyo, Japan). Light from a halogen lamp was coupled
to the fiber through a multimode silica-glass fiber with a core diameter of 400 μm. The output light
from the tested fiber was then delivered to the spectrum analyzer using a silica-glass fiber with a
core diameter of 600 μm. For measurement of the loss spectra in the mid-infrared region (2–12 μm),
we used a Fourier transform infrared spectroscope (FT-IR) (FT/IR-350, JASCO, Tokyo, Japan). In this
measurement setup, light from the FT-IR was coupled to the measured fiber by focusing the light with
an off-axis mirror of focal length 50 mm. The light output from the fiber was detected using a liquid
N2 -cooled HgCdTe detector (MCT, JASCO, Tokyo, Japan).
Bending losses of the fabricated fibers were measured with a CO2 laser (LezawinCHS, J. MORITA,
Kyoto, Japan) of wavelength 10.6 μm and a green laser diode with wavelength of 532 nm. In the
experiment, the laser light was firstly injected into a short hollow-core optical fiber (length 15 cm,
inner diameter 530 μm) that functions as a mode filter. The tested fibers were butt-coupled to this short
fiber. In the bending test, the first 25 cm of the fiber was kept straight, and the middle part was bent to
different bending angles with a bending radius of 20.25 cm. The output power was measured with a
laser power meter.
3. Results and Discussion

Figure 2 shows the surface roughness of the films as observed by an atomic force microscope
(AFM) (AFM5100N, Hitachi, Tokyo, Japan) with two and four base coats applied. For this observation,
we made samples by cutting base-coated SUS tubes into small pieces. The roughness of different
points were measured 5–12 times for each sample, and the mean values, excluding the maximum and
minimum values, are plotted in the figure. The error bars show the uncertainty in the measurements.
The RMS roughness of the inner surface of the original SUS tube was as large as 0.6–0.9 μm, and it was
made drastically smoother by the base coat. One can see that the roughness decreased with each thin
film coat, and we found that the minimum mean roughness of around 70 nm was obtained with four
coats. Figure 3 shows typical AFM images of the inner surfaces of SUS tubing after applying two and
four re-coatings. One can see that the inner surface of the SUS tubing was smoothed by applying the
resin base coating. As mentioned above, the thickness of the resin coating formed by a single process
is around 0.5 μm and thus, the total thickness of the film formed by four re-coatings is around 2 μm.
Figure 4 shows changes in the loss spectra in the visible to near-infrared regions of fibers fabricated
with the COP film. In this experiment, light from white light source was coupled to the hollow optical
fibers via a graded-index, silica-glass fiber. When such an incoherent light is injected into a hollow
optical fiber, many high-order modes are excited in the fiber and as a result, the attenuation losses
become high such as shown in Figure 5a. Firstly a COP film was formed on the Ag layer and the loss
spectrum was measured. Then the COP film was removed using cyclohexane solvent, and another
COP film was formed on the Ag after the solvent was evaporated. We observed clear interference
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Fibers 2018, 6, 24
peaks resulting from the high uniformity of the COP film in both spectra, which shows that the
acrylic-silicone base coating is not affected by the cyclohexane solvent. These clear interference fringes
allow low transmission loss of the visible-wavelength target laser. In this figure, the loss spectrum of a
fiber without COP film is also shown for comparison. Please note that losses of the fiber without COP
film are lower than those with COP film in visible and near-infrared region. This is because silver itself
provides a high reflectance in visible region and the COP coating on the top of silver somewhat reduce
the reflectance of silver. However, in mid-infrared region, this relationship is inverted because silver
does not show a high reflectance in the mid infrared and therefore, the COP film is essential for the
fibers to obtain a low transmission loss for mid-infrared lasers.
Figure 2. Surface roughness of inner surface of SUS tubing as a function of number of coats of the
acrylic resin.
Figure 3. Inner surface of SUS tubing observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) after applying two
and four layers of base coating. The RMS roughness are 119 nm for two coats and 83 nm for four coats.
(a) two times re-coating; (b) four times re-coating.
Figure 4. Loss spectra of cyclic olefin polymer (COP)-coated hollow fibers in the visible to near-infrared
region before and after removal and re-coating of the COP film.
Figure 5a shows an example attenuation-loss spectrum of the COP-coated hollow-core optical fiber
based on SUS tubing, measured in the visible region. The thickness of the COP film was finely tuned
to match the interference fringe with the target wavelength of 532 nm that is used as the visible aiming
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beam of the medical CO2 laser system. The thickness of COP film as estimated from the spectrum was
0.97 μm. Figure 5b is the loss spectrum of the COP-coated fiber measured in the mid-infrared region.
The loss spectrum of a fiber without COP film is also shown for comparison. We confirmed that, with a
COP film of the above thickness, two interference peaks appear around 2.2 μm and 4.4 μm and that a
low-loss region was obtained owing to the interference effect of the COP film in the wavelength region
of 9–11 μm. Although some sharp absorption peaks appear for the COP in the mid-infrared region,
we confirm that no peak appears at the CO2 laser wavelength of 10.6 μm.
Figure 5. Loss spectra of the COP-coated SUS fibers in (a) visible region and (b) mid-infrared region.
Figure 6 shows the bending losses of the COP-coated fibers based on SUS tubing measured with
(a) a 10.6-μm CO2 laser and (b) a 532-nm laser diode. In this test, the laser light was coupled to the
measured fiber via a short (15-cm long) hollow optical fiber. As mentioned above, this short fiber tip
was used as a mode coupler to eliminate high-order modes. As a result, the low order modes are
efficiently excited in the measured fiber and therefore, the measured losses become much lower than
those in the loss spectra (Figures 4 and 5) measured with an incoherent light.
Figure 6. Bending losses of the SUS COP-coated fibers measured with (a) 10.6-μm CO2 laser and
(b) 532-nm laser. The inner diameter of the fiber is 550 μm and the length is 1 m.
In Figure 6a,b, the measured bending losses of a COP-coated fiber based on silica-glass capillary
tubing are also shown for comparison. For mid-infrared CO2 laser light (Figure 6a), the straight loss
of the COP-coated fiber was 0.75 dB. This loss increases to 3.2 dB when the fiber is bent 180 degrees.
The measured losses of the SUS fiber coincide with those of the silica-glass based fiber. This result
confirms that the acrylic-silicone resin coating functions well as a base layer that smooths the inner
surface of SUS tubing. The losses of the fiber without a COP layer are much higher than the COP-coated
fiber, and therefore, we find that a highly uniform COP layer is formed inside the SUS tubing with the
help of the resin base coating.
For the visible laser, as shown in Figure 6b, the transmission loss is increased by the COP film
formed on top of the silver layer because the reflection of silver is itself very high in the visible region.
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However, we confirm that the COP film does not largely affect the bending loss when the thickness
is optimized, as shown in Figure 5a. Although the loss in the 180-degree bent fiber is as high as
20 dB, the green light transmitted through the fiber was clearly visible, confirming the feasibility of a
COP-coated fiber based on SUS tubing for endoscopic applications in which a visible beam is needed
at the target end. We also performed mechanical bending tests for samples of the fabricated fibers.
The results of bending tests showed that the minimum elastic bending radius is 85 mm and that the
fiber starts to snap at a bending radius of 2.5 mm.
The measured losses shown in Figure 6 are summarized in Table 1. Comparing the losses of
the SUS-based and the glass-based fibers with COP coating, the losses of the SUS-based fibers are
still larger than those of the glass-based fibers for the wavelength of 532 nm because of the larger
inner-surface roughness of the SUS-based fibers (70 nm in RMS for the SUS-based fibers and 10 nm
in RMS for the glass-based fibers). However, for the mid-infrared laser with a longer wavelength of
10.6 μm, the effect of roughness becomes smaller and the SUS-based fibers show low losses that are
comparable to those of the glass-based fibers.
Table 1. Measured losses of SUS-based and glass-based hollow optical fibers.
Additonal Loss by 90-Deg

Straight Loss (dB/m)
Fiber Type Bending (dB)
λ = 532 nm 10.6 μm 532 nm 10.6 μm
With COP 10.6 0.75 5.9 1.0
SUS based
Without COP 8.4 4.3 5.0 8.9
Glass based With COP 9.4 0.8 1.5 1.2
4. Conclusions
We have proposed a fabrication method for a robust and thin hollow-core optical fibers based
on SUS tubing. This fiber is sufficiently flexible and optically robust for endoscopic mid-infrared
laser applications. To reduce the inner surface roughness of the SUS tubing, we formed a polymer
base layer before depositing silver and optical-polymer layers. By re-coating the resin base layer,
the inner surface of the SUS tubing was made smooth enough for an effective optical layer to be
formed. Clear interference peaks were observed in both the visible and the mid-infrared regions, so the
hollow-core fibers promise low transmission losses for both the CO2 laser and the visible laser diode
used in endoscopic procedures.
So far, we have succeeded to fabricate the SUS-based hollow optical fibers with inner/outer
diameters 550/780 μm only. However, it is technically possible to make fibers with larger diameters
up to 1000 μm although the flexibility will be limited low for the fibers with such a large diameter.
For smaller diameters, we have not succeeded to fabricate fibers with inner diameter smaller than
550 μm because of relatively high viscosity of the acrylic-silicone resin solution, which makes it difficult
to form a uniform base coat for the fibers with small diameters. The maximum length of the fibers
fabricated by the proposed method is also limited to 1 m for the same reason at this stage.
Though the SUS hollow-core optical fibers showed low bending losses for both mid-infrared and
visible laser lights, the minimum elastic bending radius was limited to 85 mm because the diameter
of the SUS tube is still relatively large at 780 μm. Although this diameter is small enough to be
inserted into the working channel of endoscopes used for laser ESD, a bending radius of around
15 mm is sometimes necessary for these applications. To allow this degree of bending, we are working
toward the fabrication of SUS fibers with inner/outer diameters 300/450 μm by optimizing the coating
conditions of base coating.
Acknowledgments: This research is partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP15K06045
and JP16K06329.
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Author Contributions: Katsumasa Iwai and Hiroyuki Takaku performed the experiments and analyzed the data;
Mitsunobu Miyagi and Yi-Wei Shi conceived and designed the experiments; Yuji Matsuura wrote the paper.
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Article
Combining Hollow Core Photonic Crystal Fibers with
Multimode, Solid Core Fiber Couplers through Arc
Fusion Splicing for the Miniaturization of Nonlinear
Spectroscopy Sensing Devices
Hanna Izabela Stawska *,† , Maciej Andrzej Popenda *,† and Elżbieta Bereś-Pawlik
Department of Telecommunications and Teleinformatics, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology,
50-370 Wroclaw, Poland; elzbieta.pawlik@pwr.edu.pl
* Correspondence: hanna.stawska@pwr.edu.pl (H.I.S.); maciej.popenda@pwr.edu.pl (M.A.P.);
Tel.: +48-71-340-7642 (H.I.S. & M.A.P.)
† These authors contributed equally to this work.
Received: 15 September 2018; Accepted: 4 October 2018; Published: 11 October 2018
Abstract: The presence of fiber optic devices, such as couplers or wavelength division multiplexers,
based on hollow-core fibers (HCFs) is still rather uncommon, while such devices can be imagined to
greatly increase the potential of HCFs for different applications, such as sensing, nonlinear optics, etc.
In this paper, we present a combination of a standard, multimode fiber (MMF) optic coupler
with a hollow core photonic bandgap fiber through arc fusion splicing and its application for
the purpose of multiphoton spectroscopy. The presented splicing method is of high affordability
due to the low cost of arc fusion splicers, and the measured splicing loss (SL) of the HCF-MMF
splice is as low as (0.32 ± 0.1) dB, while the splice itself is durable enough to withstand a bending
radius (rbend ) of 1.8 cm. This resulted in a hybrid between the hollow core photonic bandgap fiber
(HCPBF) and MMF coupler, delivering 20 mW of average power and 250-fs short laser pulses to
the sample, which was good enough to test the proposed sensor setup in a simple, proof-of-concept
multiphoton fluorescence excitation-detection experiment, allowing the successful measurement of
the fluorescence emission spectrum of 10−5 M fluorescein solution. In our opinion, the presented
results indicate the possibility of creating multi-purpose HCF setups, which would excel in various
types of sensing applications.
Keywords: microstructured optical fiber splicing; optical fiber sensors; hollow core fibers; photonic
crystal fibers; multiphoton fluorescence spectroscopy
1. Introduction
The appearance of hollow core fibers (HCFs) about two decades ago [1] revealed new and versatile
opportunities for the investigation of light-matter interactions. Owing to their unique structures and
optical properties, HCFs successfully found application in many fields of science and techniques,
including biological, chemical and environmental sensing. HCFs have been used in different kinds of
sensing and measurement applications, i.e., temperature measurement [2–5], gas [6–9], strain [10],
magnetic field [11], hydrostatic pressure [12], flying particle [13,14] and plasmonic sensors [15].
In HCF, light is confined in the hollow core and, depending on the cladding structure of the fiber,
two basic propagation mechanisms are used to explain their waveguide properties—photonic bandgap
(PB) effect and the anti-resonant reflective optical waveguide (ARROW) mechanism. These propagation
models are not the only ones used to describe optical parameters of HCFs [16]—indeed,
in the literature one can find, e.g., two others, namely omnidirectional reflection [17–19] and effective
medium reflection [20]—but fibers whose way of operation can be explained using such propagation

Fibers 2018, 6, 77
models are less common. In case of hollow core photonic bandgap fibers (HCPBF) their cladding
forms a photonic crystal, which is a periodically structured (lattice-like) medium with the lattice
constant being on the order of the wavelength of the light. In these kind of fibers the light is trapped
in the defect of the structure which constitutes the air core. However, photonic bandgaps only occur
for a limited range of wavelengths, which means that the transmission bandwidth of HCPBF is
also limited [21,22]. Unlike in the case of HCPBF, the waveguide properties of anti-resonant fibers
(ARFs) result from constructive interference of the radiation that is reflected from the core–cladding
interface [23]. Up to now, different types of ARFs have been proposed, e.g., Kagomé HCF with
hypocycloid core contour [24], Kagomé HCF with hypocycloid core contour with modified shape of
core [25], revolver fiber (RF) [23], double revolver fiber [26], square-core hollow fibers [27], HCF with
anisotropic, anti-resonant elements [28] and HCF with lotus-shaped core [29]. The common feature of
all these fibers is the negative-curvature core shape, hence their name—negative curvature HCFs
(NCHCFs).
As a result of remarkable progress in the manufacturing technology of HCFs and continuous
development of different structures, HCFs are capable of guiding light with remarkably low levels of
optical loss and nonlinearity. Additionally, this type of structure offers remarkable diversity,
resulting in endless possibilities for engineering their dispersion, birefringence, effective mode
field diameter, dispersion, transmission bandwidth, etc. [20,30–35]. All these attributes enable
HCFs to resolve several challenging issues, such as delivering ultrashort, high power signals over a
wide range of wavelengths to the sample under investigation and/or collecting low-level response
signals. In medical applications, HCFs are a promising candidate for developing new kinds of
biomedical devices, suitable, for example, for the identification of different diseases. Generally,
these considerations motivate research efforts to take advantage of the intrinsic properties of
HCFs and transform them into multifunctional biosensors. One example of such a sensor is the
“lab-on-a-fiber” (LOF), which combines on-chip nanophotonic biosensors with optical fibers [36,37].
One can distinguish three different classes of LOF technology, depending on the specific location
where functional materials are integrated, and interaction between light and this material may
take place. According to [36], these three classes are: “lab around fiber” (LAF) devices, where
materials under investigation are placed onto the outer surface of the fiber (i.e., around the fiber’s
main axis); “lab on tip” (LOP) devices, where the material is integrated with the distal end of the
fiber; and “lab in fiber” (LIF) devices, where e.g., fluidic or gaseous material is placed inside the
HCF or holey structure of microstructured optical fiber. Another interesting group is optical fiber
devices which employ additional optical elements (e.g., lenses) in order to test or image a sample at
a given distance. We will refer to these as “remote fiber lab” (RFL). Considering the application of
HCFs, the most straightforward choice of the form of the developed devices is LIF or RFL, which
results from the structure of the HCF itself, and from the possibility of contamination of the examined
fiber’s core. For the purpose of LIF, NCHCF were recently used for the optical detection of chemical
and biological analytes [38,39]. It was shown that after filling the fiber with aqueous solutions its
waveguiding properties were preserved, namely the transmission bandwidth from 540 to 1700 nm, the
confinement loss at the level of 0.1 dB/m, and the single mode guidance. Due to the moderate core
diameter (32 μm), it was possible to obtain a large analyte–light overlap integral and a fast liquid flow
rate. Thus, liquid filled NCHCF can be considered for creating all-fiber, multifunctional optofluidic
devices allowing a wide range of applications, i.e., Raman spectroscopy, UV spectroscopy, non-invasive
biochemical analysis and/or interferometric sensing. In the case of UV spectroscopy, LIF devices based
on HCF can be useful in many applications, e.g., for monitoring water quality [40] and for the real-time
monitoring of isoprene in breath [41].
In particular, the application of HCFs as Raman scattering probes has attracted the attention of
researchers due to the fact that Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive, nonlinear technique that
provides information about the molecular structure of the sample [42–47]. A key limitation of the
Raman effect is its weak signal. The simplest way to increase the response signal is to use high-power
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Fibers 2018, 6, 77
laser light and a longer acquisition time, however this exposes biological samples to the risk of damage.
It has been shown that the application of HCF can effectively increase the Raman signal due to the
larger analyte-light interaction area and relatively low optical losses [43,45]. It has additionally been
shown that Raman signals can be enhanced with metal nanoparticles. This technique is known as
Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) [48] and enhances the Raman signal by a factor of 104 –108 ,
enabling the detection of molecules even at a single-molecule scale [49]. A combination of SERS with
HCFs has been successfully implemented in biomedical applications, e.g., for monitoring leukemia
cells [50], the detection of serological liver cancer biomarkers [51], human breath analysis [52] and
real time monitoring of heparin concentration in serum [53]. An additional advantage of using HCF
with SERS is the extremely low sample volume required, about 20 nl, which is desirable in clinical
diagnostics [49].
Biosensing via Raman scattering can be also implemented by means of an RFL device. In this case,
HCF usually serves to guide the excitation signal to the sample and/or response signal from the
sample. The application of HCF is especially justified in the case of Raman endoscopy. HCF can guide
ultrafast, high-power signals with negligible group velocity dispersion (GVD) and losses, which are
their key advantages over solid-core fibers. Additionally, it was shown that no Coherent Anti-Stokes
Raman Scattering (CARS) or Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) signals were generated within the
HCF, leading to excellent image quality. In 2011, Brustlein et al. [54] demonstrated, for the first time,
the deployment of double-clad HCF to perform CARS and SRS in an endoscopy-like scheme. Moreover,
in 2018, Lombardini et al. [55] presented a flexible fiber optic scanning endoscope dedicated to
high-resolution coherent Raman imaging. They used double-clad HCF with Kagomé lattice that
enables guiding both excitation signals and response signal, and a combination of microsphere and
miniature objective lens was used to focus the excitation beam onto the sample and collect the
response signal.
Furthermore, in 2018, Yerolatsitis et al. [56] showed an interesting RF which has an additional
outer ring comprising of eight solid multimode cores. Owing to the simplified structure of the RF,
the background Raman emission from silica was over 1000 times lower than that of a conventional,
solid-core fiber. The collection efficiency was similar to that received by means of the solid fiber,
but without the need to use other fibers or distal optics. Furthermore, compared to the other setups
with HCF, the generated silica background was an order of magnitude smaller [56–59].
HCFs are additionally useful also in other nonlinear imaging and spectroscopy techniques,
such as multiphoton excited fluorescence (MPEF) and higher harmonic generation. These techniques
require ultrashort pulses to be delivered to the sample with the lowest possible temporal distortions,
and HCFs fulfil these requirements. For example, in 2004, Tai et al. [60] demonstrated a HCPBF-based,
two-photon fluorescence microscope for acquiring fluorescence images of mesophyll tissue in the leaf of
Rhaphidophora aurea. Moreover, in 2014, a chirped HCF was applied in multiphoton imaging system
in order to obtain autofluorescence images of the yew leaf, mouse tendon and human skin [61].
In 2016, Sherlock et al. [62] presented an NCHCF as a good candidate for delivering excitation
pulses for two–photon microscopy. The NCHCF was also applied in the multiphoton fluorescence
setup, where it served as the excitation beam delivery fiber, while the MPEF was collected with four
surrounding plastic optical fibers [63].
HCFs have also found application in other fields of medical diagnostics, such as multi-element
HCF for infrared thermal imaging [64]. Infrared thermal imaging is a non-invasive, real-time method
that is useful in, e.g., early detection of breast cancer and other malignant tumors [64,65].
To take full advantage of the potential of HCFs, they must be integrated with other
components and devices for creating systems with the required functionality. Due to the very
limited availability of most of the optical components (fiber couplers, microlenses, Bragg gratings,
polarization controllers, etc.) there is still a problem with developing all-fiber, compact, portable
medical equipment based on HCFs. Nevertheless, the fabrication and development of HCF-based
optical elements is of great interest. For example, long-period Bragg gratings based on HCF have
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been fabricated using CO2 laser [66–68] and using the pressure-assisted electrode arc discharge (EAD)
technique [69]. Additionally, other HCF optical components have been demonstrated, e.g., polarization
controllers and polarizers [70–74]. Although the idea of integrating microlenses with photonic crystal
fibers (PCFs) is not new, having been demonstrated in [75–77], in the case of HCFs it is not so obvious
due to the microstructure collapse. As an alternative approach, in our recent work we have proposed to
combine a short segment of the standard fiber ended with microlens with HCF. It was shown that
attaching such a fiber segment has negligible influence on the broadening of the ultrafast signal which
propagates through the system designed in such a way [78]. It is also worth noting that there has been
fruitful research in developing low-loss splicing methods between HCFs and standard fibers. In 2005,
Xiao et al. [79] presented very valuable work on the topic of selective injection of microstructured optical
fibers (MOFs), in which they worked with a classic, honeycomb cladding HCPBF and a conventional
arc fusion splicer. Using the previous works of Tachikura [80] and Yablon [81] on the topic of arc current
and energy distribution in the vicinity of the splicer’s electrodes, as well as general observations and
remarks regarding fusion splicing of MOFs [82–84], they studied the effect of microstructure collapse
under different values of fusion arc current, fusion duration and fusion offset. This idea was further
developed by Thapa et al. [85], who, according to our knowledge, were the first ones to present a
reliable, low-loss arc fusion splicing of HCPBFs and solid core, single-mode fibers (SMFs). Since then,
the technology of splicing different types of MOFs has been developing, and numerous approaches
can be found [86,87]. These results suggest the possible appearance of HCPBF-based optical elements,
such as fiber couplers. However, although some attempts have been made to design and fabricate such
devices [88,89], they are not fully integrated with the fibers, i.e., the use of bulk optics is necessary to
connect such a coupler with input/output HCFs.
To overcome these obstacles, we here demonstrate a combination of HCPBF and Y-type MMF
coupler, and its application in a simple, two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF) fiber sensor setup.
Both elements are combined via a standard fusion splicing technique, allowing the creation of a hybrid,
all-fiber-optic device for the purpose of TPEF excitation and detection. The sensing tip is reduced to
the size of a single fiber, while the coupler itself allows for the division of excitation and emission
signals without the use of a dichroic mirror. Additionally, the TPEF sensing tip is equipped with a
microlens, providing the focusing of the excitation signal, required for the increased efficiency of the
TPEF. The influence of the HCPBF-MMF coupler hybrid on the temporal shape of the transmitted
ultrashort laser pulses is also determined. Finally, the proposed fiber-optic setup is used in a simple,
multiphoton fluorescence spectroscopy experiment.
2. Materials and Methods

The main goal in the paper was to present a truly all-fiber-optic TPEF sensor setup, which requires
a reliable connection between the HCPBF and MMF elements. The latter was provided by the fiber
fusion splicing procedure, performed with a conventional arc fusion splicer (FSU 975, Ericsson,
Stockholm, Sweden). The splicing procedure of HCPBF and MMF is a challenging task on its own,
and is further discussed in Section 3.1.1 of this paper. The HCPBF (HC-800-02, NKT Photonics,
Birkerød, Denmark) was spliced with one of the arms of a Y-type, multimode, 50:50 coupling ratio
(CR, at 850 and 1300 nm) fiber optic coupler (Cellco, Kobylanka, Poland). It should be noted that the
coupler’s CR was different at 780 nm, and to determine its performance at the spectral windows of
interest, namely 770–790 nm (excitation window, Wex ) and 500–650 nm (TPEF window, Wfluo ),
a white light source (AQ4305, Yokogawa, Tokyo, Japan) was coupled into the coupler’s common
port, and the output spectra of the remaining ports were recorded with a USB spectrometer (USB-2000,
OceanOptics, Largo, FL, USA). The obtained values of CR were ~80:20 for both Wex and Wfluo , and
the arm with higher coupling efficiency was chosen to couple with the excitation signal, hence its
given name—excitation arm (EA). The fusion splicer was also used to create a microlens at the tip of
the fiber coupler’s common arm, which helped in increasing the efficiency of both the excitation and
collection of the TPEF signal. To characterize the optical performance of the fabricated microlensed
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fiber tip (MFT), its output beam profile was measured with a beam profiler (BP109-IR, Thorlabs,
Newton, NJ, USA).
The presence of a solid-core MMF coupler was expected to introduce significant temporal
broadening of the coupled, fs-duration laser pulses. Thus, prior to the fluorescence excitation
detection experiments, it was necessary to determine the sensor’s influence on the temporal profile of
the transmitted ultrashort laser pulses via measurements of the autocorrelation function (ACF).
The problem of dispersion in the MMF coupler was addressed in two ways: firstly, the lengths of the
excitation and output arms of the coupler were each reduced from the initial ~1 m to about 30 cm;
then, the HCPBF fiber was introduced into the setup, one of the characteristic features of which is
positive value of the dispersion parameter D at 780 nm (DHCPBF780 ≈ 10 fs/(nm*m)), according to [90]),
which can be expected to pre-compensate the chromatic dispersion of the MMF coupler. The ACF
measurements were performed with an autocorrelator (pulseCheck, A.P.E. GmbH, Berlin, Germany),
for four different cases—laser output pulse, HCPBF output pulse, fiber coupler with reduced arm
lengths output pulse, and HCPBF+fiber coupler output pulse. Fiber output beams were collimated with
a 10× microscope objective, and then pointed onto the autocorrelator’s aperture. Coupling between
the HCPBF and MMF coupler’s excitation arm was performed with the fusion splicer, and the pulse
widths of the pre-spliced (butt-coupled) and spliced fibers were also measured. This was of great
importance, as splicing photonic crystal fibers always requires lower temperatures, making them much
more prone to core displacement, which, in turn, can cause different mode excitation in the MMF and
influence the final output pulse width.
The two-photon fluorescence spectroscopy setup, based on almost exclusively optical fiber
components, is presented in Figure 1a.
Figure 1. (a) Multiphoton fluorescence measurement setup schematic. ND: variable neutral
density filter; O1, O2: 10×/0.24 microscope objectives; HCPBF: hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber;
SP: splice point; FC: multimode fiber coupler; EA, OA, FA: fiber coupler’s excitation, output and
fluorescence arms, respectively; MFT: microlensed fiber tip; F: colored glass filter. The MFT output
power is controlled with the ND, while the HCPBF allows the laser output pulse to be pre-compensated,
reducing its temporal broadening due to the presence of FC. The FC had its EA and OA shortened to
~30 cm each. During the measurement, the MFT was immersed in a glass cuvette with a fluorescein
solution, and multiphoton excited fluorescence was recollected and transmitted through the FA to
the USB spectrometer. (b) Cross section of the HCPBF structure used in the experiment. Scale bar
(lower left corner) is 10 μm.
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A femtosecond laser light source (EFOA-SH, Atseva, Fort Collins, CO, USA), providing ultrashort
light pulses of λlaser = 780 nm and τ laser = 130 fs, at frep = 78 MHz and Pavg = 120 mW, was coupled via
a 10× microscope objective (NAMO = 0.26) into the HCPBF (NAHCPBF ≈ 0.2). The total length of the
HCPBF was ~9 m, and the the maximum power at its output was 60 mW (half the input), mainly due to
the attenuation characteristic of the fiber, as well as the mismatch between the NAMO and NAHCPBF .
The coupling was performed in free space, with a use of the 3D translation stage (MBT616D, Thorlabs,
Newton, NJ, USA). The laser output power was additionally controlled with a variable neutral density
(ND) filter (ND-100C-4M, Thorlabs, Newton, NJ, USA). The MFT was immersed in a 10−2 M NaOH
solution of fluorescein (Chempur, Piekary Ślaskie, ˛ Poland) with concentration Cfluo = 10−5 M. The
fluorescence signal was recollected by the MFT, and the remaining arm of the fiber coupler (fluorescence
arm–FA, see Figure 1a) was used to transmit it (fluorescence signal) to the USB spectrometer. The FA’s
output signal was additionally filtered (FGB37-A, Tholabs, Newton, NJ, USA) to reduce the amount of
backscattered excitation light, and then focused onto the slit of the spectrometer with another 10×
microscope objective. The spectrometer’s integration time (tint ) during the fluorescence measurements
was 2 s.
3.1. Combining the HCPBF and MM, Solid-Core Fiber with An Arc Fusion Splicer
3.1.1. Arc Fusion Splicing of HCPBF and Solid-Core MMF

When splicing dissimilar fibers, the loss figure of such splicing is mainly governed by the fibers’
mode field mismatch, causing the splice to be non-symmetrical in terms of the transmission direction
(i.e., the splice loss will be lower from the smaller MFD fiber to the larger MFD fiber than in the
opposite direction). This loss can be reliably estimated by calculating the mode field overlap integral of
the spliced fibers [91], however the complicated mode structure of the HCPBFs makes this method
hard to implement [85]. Moreover, the mechanics of splicing MOFs is inherently different due to the
presence of the photonic structure. The effect of its collapse during the splicing poses a major challenge,
and many researchers have studied it extensively [79,84,86]. In general, the microstructured cladding
collapses due to the silica’s viscosity being greatly reduced in the high-temperature region of fusion
arc discharge. Additionally, the presence of air holes in HCPBFs (and MOFs) severely distracts and
reduces the rate of heat transfer from the fiber’s outer surface to its core, causing a difference in its
temperature and directly influencing both the optical losses and mechanical properties of the splice.
This has resulted in a general preference for using sophisticated glass processing stations, such as
filament fusion splicers or CO2 laser-based fiber splicers, which provide a very stable and uniform
heat distribution across the splice area, making them an extremely reliable device for the purpose of
splicing MOFs. However, the price of such systems greatly reduces their affordability, whereas arc
fusion splicers, due to their common presence and ease of use, make for a very interesting alternative,
even though they are not as effective due to the electrical arc’s susceptibility to the environment,
wear of electrodes, etc. [81].
The initial splicing parameters used during this study were based on the previously mentioned
work presented by Thapa et al. [85]. However, using the proposed parameters to splice the HCPBF and
MMF used in our experiment resulted in extremely fragile splices, which broke almost immediately
after removing the fibers from the splicers clamps. We attribute this behavior to the fact that the
photonic structure diameter (dstruct ) of our HCPBF is much smaller than in the case of HCPBF
used by our predecessors [85] (45 and 70 μm, respectively), and in turn the total volume of glass
is increased in our HCPBF. As a result, the latter requires higher temperatures (and higher splicing
currents) to heat it properly and form a strong splice; this conclusion has been supported by the
observations of Xiao et al. [86]. A detailed description of the splicing procedure, as well as the
values of the fusion currents, times and offset, crucial for the quality of the splice, can be found in
Appendix A. The measured values of splicing loss (SL) and bending radius (rbend ) of five consecutive
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splices, fabricated with the proposed program, are presented in Table 1. Each splice withstood bending,
with rbend ≈ 1.8 cm, while the average SL (transmission direction ‘HCPBF to MMF’) was 0.32 dB.
Bending the fabricated splices with rbend = 1.8 cm had minimal influence on overall loss figure: splice
bending loss (SBL) did not exceed the value of 0.07 dB. An example of a successful splice is presented
in Figure 2a. The collapse of the photonic structure causes bright scattering and reflection of the
transmitted signal at the HCPBF-MMF interface, observable on the splicers screen and with the naked
eye (Figure 2b,c). Nevertheless, as mentioned previously, one can expect that when a small core fiber
(HCPBF) is spliced with a large core fiber (MMF), the splice loss should be relatively small when signal
transmission occurs in the ‘HCPBF to MMF’ direction.
Table 1. Splice loss, bending loss and bending radius of five consecutive HCPBF-MMF splices,
fabricated with optimal splicing parameters presented in Table A1. The last row contains the average
values of the presented results, together with their standard deviation.
Splice No. Splice Loss SL (dB) Bending Radius (rbend ) (cm) Splice Bending Loss SBL (dB)
1 0.23 0.04
2 0.26 0.03
3 0.46 ≤1.8 0.07
4 0.27 0.03
5 0.36 0.05
Average (0.32 ± 0.1) dB - (0.04 ± 0.02) dB
Figure 2. (a) Splice between the HCPBF and MMF. (b) Scattering and reflection of the transmitted
λ = 780 nm laser signal, observed in the form of a large bright circle near the splice line between the
HCPBF and MMF. This effect is caused by the collapse of HCPBF’s microstructure, which impairs
its ability to guide light and causes the transmitted signal to diverge quickly in the collapsed region.
(c) Photograph of HCPBF-MMF splice during the transmission of laser signal, exhibiting the previously
described microstructure collapse effect.
3.1.2. Microlensed Tip of MMF Coupler for the Enhancement of Two-Photon Excited Fluorescence
Fabrication and analysis of the optical performance of MFTs has previously been described by
several researchers [75,77,78], while the fusion splicer program details and parameters used for this
particular MFT are presented in Appendix A. The main goal was to obtain a small fiber end-face
curvature, allowing the fiber output beam to be focused and the efficiency of TPEF to be enhanced.
A picture of the fabricated MFT and its output beam profile are presented in Figure 3a,b, respectively.
The beam profile was measured in the far field, showing the Gaussian-like intensity distribution in both
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Fibers 2018, 6, 77
the X and Y directions, and thus demonstrating good spatial beam quality. The working distance of
the MFT (WDMFT ), measured according to the method presented in [78], was ~180 μm.
Figure 3. (a) Picture of the microlensed tip (MFT) of the MMF coupler output arm. (b) Far field beam
profile of the MFT output beam. The profiles in the X and Y directions are both Gaussian-like. Scale bar
in 3a is 125 μm.
3.2. ACF Traces of the Proposed HCPBF-MMF Coupler Setup and Its Application for the Purpose of
Multiphoton Fluorescence Spectroscopy
Dispersion effects introduced by the solid-core fibers can have a destructive influence on the
fundamental laser pulse width, and in turn impair the efficiency of nonlinear optical effects such
as MPEF. The obtained ACF traces of the fiber-coupled fs laser beam are presented in Figure 4.
Each of the ACFs was fitted with a Lorentzian-shaped curve, as it exhibited the lowest approximation
errors (R2 values for each fit were as good as 0.998). As mentioned before, HCPBF’s dispersion
parameter D at 780 nm is DHCPBF780 ≈ 10 fs/(nm*m), suggesting that the total pulse broadening within
~9 m length of this fiber is about 90 fs. Figure 4a shows the ACF trace of HCPBF coupled pulse,
whose calculated width (τ HCPBF ) was 190 fs.
Figure 4. Autocorrelation function traces of femtosecond laser pulses transmitted through: (a) HCPBF;
(b) MMF coupler; (c) HCPBF+MMF coupler, butt-coupled (prior to splicing); (d) HCPBF+MMF coupler,
spliced. In 4b, c and d, the coupler output arm tip is microlensed. A noticeable reduction of the pulse
width (τFWHM ) can be observed in the case of the combined HCPBF and MMF coupler, showing the
feasibility of compensating dispersion effects, introduced by the solid-core fiber elements, with HCPBF.
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Comparing this with the τ of the laser beam, coupled into the MMF coupler (τ MMF = 336 fs),
one can observe that τ MMF is nearly twice the τ HCPBF. Combining these two types of fibers (Figure 4c,d),
the effect of dispersion compensation can be observed, resulting in the reduction of the τ MMF by about
86 fs (τ HCPBF+MMF ≈ 250 fs), which corresponds to the total value of DHCPBF780 after 9 m length of
fiber, proving the anomalous dispersion of the HCPBF at λ = 780 nm. Additionally, due to the
splicing procedure, which softened the fibers and could potentially result in the displacement of their
cores, we measured the width of the spliced HCPBF and MMF coupler output pulse (Figure 4d).
The value of τFWHM in this case was 255 fs, showing that, although there is a slight difference between
the butt-coupled and spliced setups, this was not large enough to consider splicing as a procedure that
significantly influences the pulse width. The experimental error in these measurements, apart from
the resolution of the autocorrelator (Δτ = ±2 fs), is connected mainly with the problem of exciting
different modes during the coupling of HCPBF and MMF. We did not study this effect, however
it was not necessary due to the mechanical requirements of the splice. Mechanically strong splices
should be geometrically symmetrical, which means that the MMF excitation conditions should be
constant, since the core of MMF and HCPBF should run along the same optical axis after coupling
prior to the splicing. In this case, the main source of the error should be the eccentricity of the cores of
the spliced fibers; however, it does not influence the final pulse width significantly, which was proven
by the pulse widths obtained for pre-spliced and spliced fibers. It should also be mentioned that the
total pulse broadening was also increased by the two 10× objectives present in the setup; however,
since it should be on the order of few fs, we considered it to be negligible.
To prove that the proposed HCPBF-MMF coupler hybrid can be considered a candidate for the
purpose of MPEF spectroscopy, the TPEF emission spectra of fluorescein were measured, as depicted in
Figure 5. The average power delivered to the sample was 20 mW. Two emission peaks can be
observed, one in the ~760–800 nm range, originating from the excitation laser, and another one,
spanning ~ 480 to 580 nm, with a maximum at 518 nm, which is connected with examined fluorescein
solution. The obtained results are in good agreement with those presented in [92]. Although the
collected spectrum is contaminated with the backscattered laser radiation (both by the sample and
due to the weak isolation of the MMF coupler), the presented idea can be considered a promising step
towards simple, fiber-based optical biopsy devices.
Figure 5. Two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF) emission spectrum of 10−2 M NaOH fluorescein
solution (concentration Cfluo ≈ 10−5 M). A fluorescence peak, visible on the enlarged inset graph,
exhibits its maximum at ~518 nm. A backscattered excitation signal peak at 780 nm is also visible,
and even though it exceeds the Y-axis maximum, it does not saturate the spectrometer’s detector,
and in turn has no influence on the recorded fluorescence spectrum.
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4. Conclusions
This work presented a hybrid between an HCF and an MMF Y-type coupler, and its application to
multiphoton fluorescence spectroscopy. Arc fusion splicing of HCF and MMF was presented,
resulting in low splicing and bending loss (0.32 and 0.04 dB (at bending radius ≥ 1.8 cm), respectively)
splices, which shows the opportunity of combining these two distinct types of fibers in a simple and
affordable fashion. The presented fiber coupler hybrid was used in a proof-of-concept multiphoton
spectroscopy experiment, with the coupler’s common arm acting as a fluorescence excitation-detection
arm. The tip of this arm was curved with the use of the same arc fusion splicer, creating a microlens
with a working distance of ~180 μm and Gaussian-like output beam profile. This tip ensured
focusing of the output beam, which is an important factor for the efficiency of exciting fluorescence
due to the multiphoton absorption. Fluorescence was excited in a 10−2 NaOH fluorescein solution
(Cfluo ≈ 10−5 M). The recollected fluorescence signal was recorded with a USB spectrometer.
The presented fiber-optic setup has three features which are very interesting from the sensing point of
view, namely size, price and simplicity. It should be noted that the MMF coupler used in this
research is not an optimal solution for the spectral region of interest (400–800 nm), and thus one
can suppose that the efficiency of the proposed setup could be increased by replacing the coupler with
a one designed for the VIS spectral region. Nevertheless, the proposed HCPBF and MMF coupler
combination allowed for the delivery of 130-fs short laser pulses with moderate dispersive broadening
(255 fs at the HCPBF+MMF coupler output), making it a solution considerable for applications in the
field of non-linear optics.
Author Contributions: H.I.S. and M.A.P. designed the experiment, conducted the measurements, discussed the
results and prepared the data. All the authors edited the manuscript. E.B.-P. supervised the research.
Funding: This research was funded by the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology Grants No.
0401/0140/17 and 0402/0149/17.
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank prof. Sławomir Sujecki for his support during this research.
Appendix A. Arc Fusion Splicing Procedures–Technical Notes
Appendix A.1. Arc Fusion Splicing of HCPBF and MMF

The optimum splicing parameters were found by performing over 30 splices, and the splice
pass/fail criteria were as follows: splice loss (SL) ≤ 0.5 dB and splice bending radius (rbend ) ≤ 1.8 cm.
It could be possible to improve these parameters, however they satisfied the needs of our experiment,
as only a single splice was required. Prior to splicing, about 2 cm of both HCPBF and MMF were
stripped, cleaved (FC-6S, Sumitomo Electric, Raleigh, NC, USA) and cleaned with dry, lint-free tissue,
resulting in good quality, clean fiber facets. Specific splicing parameters are presented in Table A1.
As the splice itself is formed during splicing phases 2 and 3 (i.e., when the fusion currents 2 and 3
are applied), the changes were implemented mainly for these parameters. By connecting the MMF
output to the optical power meter (S121C with PM100D, Thorlabs, Newton, NJ, USA) the evolution of
the output power (Pout_MM ) was observed (Figure A1) and it was noted that during splice phase 1,
when a 10 mA current was applied for 0.2 s, Pout_MM fell quickly, which was a hint that the optimum
current value lays between the 6.3 and 10 mA.
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Table A1. Arc fusion splicer parameters adjusted for splicing hollow-core photonic crystal fiber
(HC-800-02, NKT Photonics, Birkerød, Denmark) and solid-core, multimode, type OM2 fibers.
Splicing Parameter Name Parameter Values

Prefuse time (s) 0.1
Prefuse current (mA) 10
Gap (μm) 10
Overlap (μm) 10
Fusion time 1 tF1 (s) 0.2
Fusion current 1 IF1 (mA) 10
Fusion time 2 tF2 (s) 6
Fusion current 2 IF2 (mA) 9.4
Offset (-) 260
Figure A1. Evolution of splicing loss over time measured during the HCPBF-MMF splicing procedure.
Dotted lines indicate moments of start and stop of three main splicing phases. SL rise is most intense
during phase 1 of splicing (i.e., when the fiber tips are softened and prepared for forming a splice with
a high fusion current). The SL value falls almost immediately after the splicing has stopped; the splicers
program stops pushing the fibers towards each other, which probably reduces the displacement between
the cores of both fibers and in turn positively influences coupling between them in the splice region.
Appendix A.2. Fabrication of the Fiber Microlens at the Tip of the MMF Coupler
MFT fabrication details are presented in Table A2. The same arc fusion splicer as in the case of
splicing HCPBF and MMF was used. Moving the MMF tip from the center of the arc curvature by
50 μm (offset = 305) allowed for better control of the lens formation process.
Table A2. Arc fusion splicer parameters for the fabrication of microlensed fiber tip. The program was
based on the splicers tapering procedure, which means that the fiber tip was constantly being pulled
away from the splicers arc. A large offset (approximately 50 μm from the center arc) ensured that
the lens curvature was small enough (about 150 μm), while large values of the arc currents made the
process quicker than in the case of standard fiber tapering.
Parameter Name Value

Prefuse time (s) 0.2
Prefuse current (mA) 10
Fusion time 1 tFL1 (s) 2
Fusion current 1 IFL1 (mA) 15
Offset (-) 305
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fibers
Article
A Method to Process Hollow-Core Anti-Resonant
Fibers into Fiber Filters
Xiaosheng Huang, Ken-Tye Yong and Seongwoo Yoo *
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The Photonics Institute, Nanyang Technological University,
50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore; xhuang012@e.ntu.edu.sg (X.H.); ktyong@ntu.edu.sg (K.-T.Y.)
* Correspondence: seon.yoo@ntu.edu.sg; Tel.: +65-6592-7597
Received: 25 July 2018; Accepted: 15 August 2018; Published: 22 November 2018
Abstract: Hollow-Core Anti-Resonant Fiber (HC-ARF) shows promising applications. Nevertheless,

there has been a persistent problem when it comes to all-fiber integration due to a lack of
HC-ARF-based fiber components. In response to this remaining challenge, we investigate a reliable,
versatile and efficient method to convert an HC-ARF into a fiber filter. By locally heating an HC-ARF
with a CO2 laser, the fiber structure becomes deformed, and cladding capillaries shrink to produce a
thicker wall. This process is analogous to “writing” a new fiber with a thicker wall on the original fiber,
resulting in creating new high loss regions in the original transmission bands. Thus, the construction
of a fiber filter is realized by “writing” a new fiber on the original fiber. The feasibility of this method
is confirmed through experiments, adopting both one- and two-layer HC-ARF. The HC-ARF-based
fiber filters are found to have transmission spectra consistent with simulation prediction. Both band
pass and band reject fiber filters with more than a 20-dB extinction ratio are obtainable without
extra loss. Thus, an in-fiber HC-ARF filter is demonstrated by the CO2 writing process. Its versatile
approach promises controlled band selection and would find interesting applications to be discussed.
Keywords: fiber filters; hollow core fibers; anti-resonant; photonic crystal fibers; fabrication
1. Introduction
Since the first theoretical demonstration in 1995 [1], Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fibers
(HC-PCFs), as a remarkable breakthrough in fiber optics, have made it possible to guide light in
the air core. This unique guiding property promises the potentials of achieving a higher damage
threshold, lower Rayleigh scattering, lower material absorption and lower nonlinearity as compared to
conventional fibers [2]. Hence, HC-PCFs have promising applications in areas of high power/ultrafast
beam delivery [3], pulse compression [4] and communication systems [5], to name a few. One type of
HC-PCFs is Hollow-Core Photonic Bandgap Fibers (HC-PBGFs), the record loss of which is 1.2 dB/km
at 1.62 μm [6]. The HC-PBGF typically has a relatively narrow transmission band. The other type
of HC-PCF is the so-called Hollow-Core Anti-Resonant Fibers (HC-ARFs), the guiding property
relies of which on the combination of anti-resonance and inhibited coupling to low density of states
cladding modes [7,8]. The HC-ARF has received ever-increasing interest thanks to its multiple
broad transmission bands [7,9], simple and flexible cladding structures [10–13] and relatively low
transmission loss [8,14–16]. The HC-ARFs show promising prospects in applications such as delivering
light with a wide spectral range from ultra violet to mid-infrared [17,18], an optofluidic system [19,20]
and light gas interaction [21]. Despite the unique properties of hollow core fibers, their connectivity to
conventional fiber components is inefficient due to the mismatch of numerical aperture, as well as core
size. As a result, most of the HC-ARF-based optical systems rely on free space optical components that
hinder the wide uptake of hollow core fibers at the system level.
An alternative to the attempt of connecting hollow core fibers to solid fiber-based components
is to develop HC-ARF-based fiber components. Such hollow core-based components definitely

Fibers 2018, 6, 89
facilitate the simplification of the HC-ARF-based optical system. To date, the reported works on
hollow-core fiber-based components are limited, with most of them focusing on fiber couplers [22–24].
Fiber filters, on the one hand, comprise one of the most important fiber-based components that allows
the transmission of certain wavelengths [25,26]. Nonetheless, the realization of hollow core-based
filters has not yet been demonstrated. In fact, HC-ARFs are of great potential to be fiber filters on
account of the core wall thickness-dependent transmission wavelengths and transmission bandwidth.
Combining HC-ARFs with different core wall thicknesses will enable customization of the actual
transmission bands.
In this work, we report a reliable, flexible and efficient method to process HC-ARFs into fiber
filters. By locally heating an HC-ARF with a CO2 laser, the fiber structure becomes deformed, and
cladding capillaries shrink to have thicker walls. This process is analogous to “writing” a new fiber with
a thicker wall on the original fiber, resulting in creating new high loss regions (resonant wavelengths)
in the original transmission bands. Thus, the control of the transmission wavelengths of the fiber filter
is realized by controlling the wall thickness “written” on the original fiber. Furthermore, this method
is able to integrate an in-line fiber filter into an HC-ARF without extra loss and is promising in many
HC-ARF-based applications, which are also discussed.
2. Methods
As depicted in Figure 1a, the HC-ARF is composed of one layer of capillaries that surrounds
the hollow region to form an anti-resonant guidance. The nodeless cladding and negative curvature
of the core-cladding boundary are two critical features of HC-ARF that significantly reduce the fiber
loss [13,27,28]. The HC-ARF fabricated by the stack and draw technique [9,29] has a good structure, as
presented in Figure 1b. Among all the geometric parameters, the most important parameters are core
diameter D, capillary size p and capillary wall thickness t. While both D and p relate to the fiber loss, t
is the only geometric parameter that determines the transmission wavelengths. Transmission bands of
HC-ARFs are determined by the resonant wavelengths. Resonant wavelengths are the central wavelength
of high loss regions, and a low loss transmission band exists between every adjacent high loss region.
The m-th order resonant wavelength, λm , can be calculated from the following equation [30]:

2t × n2 2 − n21
λm = , m = 1, 2, 3... (1)
m
where t is the wall thickness, n2 is the refractive index of cladding material and n1 is the refractive index
of core material. In the case of silica-based air core fiber, we set n2 = 1.45 and n1 = 1.00. The low loss
region between the m-th and (m + 1)-th resonant wavelengths is called the m-th transmission band.
Figure 1. (a) Schematic diagram of the cross-sectional view of a negative curvature HC-ARF (Hollow-Core
Anti-Resonant Fiber). t is the capillary wall thickness; p is the capillary outer diameter; and D is the core
diameter. (b) HC-ARF fabricated by the stack and draw method that produces a good structure.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 89
The second and third transmission bands of HC-ARFs with different wall thicknesses are studied
by simulation. The results are calculated by a vector wave expansion method using the open source
software Polymode [31]. As shown in Figure 2a, combing a fiber (t = 1.0 μm) to another fiber
possessing a thicker wall (t = 1.1 μm) leads to the narrowing of transmission bands. We define the
transmission band when its CL is below 3 dB/m. If the wall thickness difference between the fibers
becomes larger (e.g., t = 1.0 μm and t = 1.2 μm), the (m + 1)-th transmission band of the thick-wall
fiber can overlap with the m-th transmission band of the thin-wall fiber, resulting in multiple and
narrow transmission bands (see Figure 2b).
Although combing HC-ARFs with different t can narrow the transmission bands, it is inefficient
and troublesome to fabricate multiple HC-ARFs with different wall thicknesses and to splice them
together. Instead, it makes more sense to process a piece of uniform fiber to have varied wall thicknesses
along its axis. To achieve this, a CO2 laser-assisted glass processing stage (LZM-100 from Fujikura Ltd.,
Tokyo, Japan) is used to process the fiber. As illustrated in Figure 3a, a piece of HC-ARF is loaded
onto two fiber holders. During the fiber processing, both holders rotate at the same speed to ensure
symmetric heating. In parallel, the holders longitudinally move at the same traveling speed toward
the same direction in order to avoid any twist or stretch. A section of the HC-ARF is locally heated by
the CO2 laser with tunable power P. Under the CO2 laser treatment, the exposed section undergoes
shrinkage due to surface tension, resulting in increasing wall thickness. The wall thickness of the
processed fiber is controllable by adjusting the laser power P. Hence, uniform modification of wall
thickness is achievable by moving the laser exposure along the fiber axis, as illustrated in Figure 3b.
Figure 2. Simulated second and third transmission bands of HC-ARFs with different t. Roman
numerals mark the hybrid transmission bands of HC-ARFs with: (a) t = 1.0 μm and t = 1.1 μm;
(b) t = 1.0 μm and t = 1.2 μm. In all cases, D = 30.0 μm, p = 24.0 μm.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 89
Figure 3. (a) Schematic diagram of the HC-ARF processing, r1 = r2 = 50 rpm, v1 = v2 = 0.5 μm/ms;
heating is realized with a CO2 laser. (b) During the process, the HC-ARF undergoes structural
deformation, yielding a thicker wall. L is the length of the processed fiber.

A 17-cm HC-ARF, Fiber #1 (please, see Figure 4), was processed with the aforementioned method
under different heating powers. The original fiber (Fiber #1) had a wall thickness t = 1.40 μm and a core
diameter D = 31.2 μm, while the wall thickness of the processed fiber increased to be 1.49 μm (Fiber #2,
processed with 19.2 W of heating power) and 1.63 μm (Fiber #3, processed with 20.1 W of heating power),
respectively. As predicted, under high temperature, capillaries shrunk to induce a thicker wall due to
surface tension. Transmission spectra of different fiber combinations were also measured, as shown in
Figure 4. Resonant wavelengths of Fiber #2 and Fiber #3 were calculated and marked with blue and red
dashed lines, respectively. As demonstrated by the measured transmission spectra, writing a new fiber
on the original fiber by the CO2 laser introduced a new high loss region (extra resonant band), realizing
a selective transmission/rejection in-fiber filter. We noticed that the writing process did not introduce
any significant extra loss. Besides the controllability, the reproducibility of the proposed method was also
verified as the fibers processed under the same CO2 laser power showed similar transmission spectra.
Figure 4. Transmission spectra of different fiber combinations. Fiber #1: unprocessed fiber, t = 1.40 μm,
D = 31.2 μm; Fiber #2: processed under P = 19.2 W, t = 1.49 μm, D = 33.2 μm; Fiber #3: processed
under P = 20.1 W, t = 1.63 μm, D = 36.5 μm. Resonant wavelengths of Fiber #1, Fiber #2 and Fiber #3
are calculated from Equation (1) and marked with dashed black lines, dashed blue lines and dashed
red lines respectively.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 89
More interestingly, as both t and D were changed, the dispersion curve of the fiber significantly
shifted. As shown in Figure 5a, the Effective Refractive Index (ERI) curves were obtained by fitting
the simulation values (solid dots), then the Group Velocity Dispersion (GVD) curves were calculated
from the ERI curves, as shown in Figure 5b. As the fiber structure was changed from #1–#3, the zero
dispersion wavelength shifted from around 860 nm to around 1000 nm. The change of the core size
was responsible for this dispersion curve transformation [4]. Therefore, the proposed method also has
promising prospects in applications relying on dispersion control, especially in pulse compression.
Figure 5. (a) Effective refractive index and (b) GVD (Group Velocity Dispersion) curve of both Fiber #1
and #3. In (a), the dots plot the simulation values, while the solid curves are quintic functions, which
fit the simulation values.
The method is also applicable to a multiple layer HC-ARF, as evidenced by the results in Figure 6.
The two-layer structure responded to the CO2 laser writing process to introduce an additional rejection
band. As indicated in both Figures 4 and 6, implementing a new single different wall thickness for
an existing HC-ARF can made band reject filters. Here, we also demonstrate a band pass filter by
introducing multiple different wall thicknesses into an original HC-ARF. The procedure is described
in Figure 7. We used a two-layer HC-ARF as a pristine fiber. A section of 7 cm in the 25 cm-long
pristine fiber (Fiber #4) was written under exposure power P = 19.4 W. Its corresponding transmission
is present in the blue curve in Figure 7. Subsequently, another section of the same length was written
by the lower power of P = 18.7 W to decrease the number of transmission bands (red line in Figure 7).
The final fiber had limited transmission bands and worked more like a band pass filter with low excess
loss, but 20-dB high extinction ratio.
Figure 6. Transmission spectra of different fiber combinations. Fiber #4: unprocessed fiber, t = 1.97 μm;
Fiber #5: processed under P = 18.9 W, t = 2.09 μm; Fiber #6: processed under P = 19.8 W, t = 2.21 μm.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 89
Figure 7. Schematic diagram illustrating the steps to make an HC-ARF-based band pass filter.
As multiple different wall thicknesses are “written” into the original HC-ARF, the transmission bands
are greatly narrowed.
The demonstrated HC-ARF-based filter could find interesting applications such as pump and
signal wavelength separation in a gas-/liquid-filled HC-ARF system. HC-ARFs have been adopted to
demonstrate excellent cavities for gas Raman generation and optofluidic systems [19,20] in which for
both cases, free space optical filters were selected to filter out the excitation beam. Alternatively, by
simply processing the HC-ARF with the method proposed in this work, an HC-ARF-based optical
filter can be seamlessly written into the system without extra loss, as illustrated in Figure 8. This would
be one step closer to an all-fiberized hollow core fiber system.
Figure 8. This schematic diagram shows the working principle of the HC-ARF-based filter in
gas-/liquid-filled optical systems.
4. Conclusions
HC-ARFs with uniform wall thickness thave multiple and broad transmission bands. We have
shown that writing a different wall thickness HC-ARF is feasible by using a CO2 laser-based glass
process stage. Consequently, the written HC-ARF exhibits the AND operation of two transmission
characteristics defined by the written and the pristine HC-ARFs’ wall thicknesses. In addition,
we demonstrated multiple chained AND operations by writing various wall thickness HC-ARFs
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Fibers 2018, 6, 89
in series along the fiber axis. On the basis of this principle, a novel method has also been proposed and
demonstrated to convert HC-ARFs into in-fiber filters. The HC-ARF filter fabricated by this method
benefits from low excess loss, easy integration with the HC-ARF-based system and controllable
transmission/rejection wavelengths. We have also suggested a potential application of such fiber
filters toward an all-fiberized HC-ARF system.
Author Contributions: X.H. conceived of the idea, performed the experiments, analyzed the data and wrote the
manuscript. S.Y. supervised the design of the study and revised the manuscript. K.-T.Y supervised the design and
participated in the experimental setup.
Acknowledgments: S.Y. acknowledges support from KEIP through the Global Research Programme.
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript:
HC-PCF Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber

HC-PBGF Hollow-Core Photonic Bandgap Fiber
HC-ARF Hollow-Core Anti-Resonant Fiber
ERI Effective Refractive Index
GVD Group Velocity Dispersion
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5. Poletti, F.; Wheeler, N.V.; Petrovich, M.N.; Baddela, N.; Fokoua, E.N.; Hayes, J.R.; Gray, D.R.; Li, Z.;
Slavík, R.; Richardson, D.J. Towards high-capacity fibre-optic communications at the speed of light in
vacuum. Nat. Photonics 2013, 7, 279–284. [CrossRef]
7. Couny, F.; Benabid, F.; Roberts, P.J.; Light, P.S.; Raymer, M.G. Generation and photonic guidance of
multi-octave opticalfrequency combs. Science 2007, 318, 1118–1121. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
8. Gao, S.F.; Wang, Y.Y.; Ding, W.; Jiang, D.L.; Gu, S.; Zhang, X.; Wang, P. Hollow-core conjoined-tube
negative-curvature fibre with ultralow loss. Nat. Common. 2018, 9, 2828–2828. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
9. Huang, X.; Yoo, S.; Yong, K. Function of second cladding layer in hollow core tube lattice fibers. Sci. Rep.
10. Poletti, F. Nested anti-resonant nodeless hollow core fiber. Opt. Express 2014, 22, 23807–23828. [CrossRef]
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11. Yu, F.; Knight, J.C. Negative curvature hollow core optical fiber. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 2016, 22,
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12. Huang, X.; Qi, W.; Ho, D.; Yong, K.T.; Luan, F.; Yoo, S. Hollow core anti-resonant fiber with split cladding.
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14. Hayes, J.R.; Sandoghchi, S.R.; Bradley, T.D.; Liu, Z.; Slavík, R.; Gouveia, M.A.; Wheeler, N.V.; Jasion, G.;
Chen, Y.; Fokoua, E.N.; et al. Antiresonant hollow core fiber with an octave spanning bandwidth for short
haul data communications. J. Lightwave Technol. 2017, 35, 437–442. [CrossRef]
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Gérôme, F.; et al. Ultralow transmission loss in inhibited-coupling guiding hollow fibers. Optica 2017, 4,
16. Belardi, W.; Knight, J.C. Hollow anti-resonant fibers with reduced attenuation. Opt. Lett. 2014, 39, 1853–1856.
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17. Gao, S.F.; Wang, Y.Y.; Ding, W.; Wang, P. Hollow-core negative-curvature fiber for UV guidance. Opt. Lett.
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attenuation. ACS Photonics 2014, 1, 790–793. [CrossRef]
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gas-based nonlinear optics. Nat. Photonics 2014, 8, 278–286. [CrossRef]
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Article
Hollow Core Optical Fibers for Industrial Ultra Short
Pulse Laser Beam Delivery Applications
Sebastian Eilzer * and Björn Wedel
PT Photonic Tools GmbH, Johann-Hittorf-Straße 8, 12489 Berlin, Germany; b.wedel@photonic-tools.de
* Correspondence: s.eilzer@photonic-tools.de; Tel.: +49-30-6392-78000
Received: 14 September 2018; Accepted: 10 October 2018; Published: 16 October 2018
Abstract: Hollow core fibers were introduced many years ago but are now starting to be used regularly
in more demanding applications. While first experiments mainly focused on the characterization
and analysis of the fibers themselves, they are now implemented as a tool in the laser beam delivery.
Owing to their different designs and implementations, different tasks can be achieved, such as flexible
beam delivery, wide spectral broadening up to supercontinuum generation or intense gas-laser
interaction over long distances. To achieve a constant result in these applications under varying
conditions, many parameters of these fibers have to be controlled precisely during fabrication and
implementation. A wide variety of hollow core fiber designs have been analyzed and implemented
into a high-power industrial beam delivery and their performance has been measured.
Keywords: hollow core fiber; beam delivery; ultrafast lasers
1. Introduction
Laser sources with ultrashort pulses have taken a rapid development and broader industrial use
over the past couple of years. Of particular interest are material processing technologies, which enable
manufacturing of highly precise structures and delicate materials [1]. Thanks to the short light–matter
interaction of ultrafast laser pulses, thermal damage of material substrates can be greatly reduced and
also new interactions, such as filamentation, can be used.
While the development of laser sources and material processing technologies have steadily
evolved (both in terms of available optical parameters as well as industrial performance),
system technology has often been identified to be the limiting factor in today’s industrial application.
This includes beam transport and beam steering and shaping.
The usage of continuous-wave high-power lasers in the industry has made a huge leap forward
by incorporating flexible fiber-based beam delivery. There are many advantages of using a fiber
beam transport, compared to free space, especially in an industrial environment. The most obvious
advantage is the flexible use of the laser at different positions while maintaining the beam properties.
While gantry units can be realized with stabilized free-space setups, the option for different angles and
flexibility with a fiber are far greater, especially in robot arm applications. These advantages are made
accessible for the use of high-power ultrafast lasers by the introduction of hollow core fiber. Their laser
beams cannot be transported with traditional step-index fibers as their peak intensity lies above the
damage threshold of silica and would therefore destroy the fiber itself. Thanks to the air- or gas-filled
core in a hollow core fiber, it is possible to efficiently guide short laser pulses with little dispersion and
high peak power over relevant distances.
The first microstructured hollow core fibers were reported by Cregan et al. in 1999 [2]. To contain
the laser energy inside a hollow core, distinctly different physical phenomena, compared to those of
step-index fibers, have to be applied, since the material surrounding the core has a higher refractive
index. The ordered and repetitive structure of a bandgap fiber cladding allows for wavelength areas

Fibers 2018, 6, 80
where the light does not couple into the cladding and therefore remains inside the core. This basic
concept, explained in different ways and with varying models, still holds true for any hollow core
fiber design.
The integration of hollow core optical fibers into laser light cables has been presented by Photonic
Tools in 2015. The ultrafast beam delivery comprises a coupling unit, the laser light cable itself and a
modular processing head (see Section 2.3) and can be used for applications ranging from sensing to
material processing or nonlinear pulse shaping.
The aim of this work is to summarize the integration of hollow core fiber in an industrial
environment and present some representative applications.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Types of Fibers

There exists a large variety of hollow core fibers which could in principle be used for transmission
of ultrafast laser pulses. However, when considering factors such as required lengths, typical laser
application parameters, mechanical tolerances, optical layouts and operation environments, quite a
few new boundary conditions play a role in designing the optimal fiber.
A key point, when working with hollow core fibers, concerns the existence of more than one
mode inside the core. The amount of dampening of each of these modes determines beam quality at
the output when several modes are excited, either during coupling into the fiber or when disturbances
influence the transmission. If higher-order modes are highly suppressed, a lower overall transmission
can be expected. To transmit higher pulse energies and couple them reliably into a fiber, a larger core
is necessary; however, a larger core also allows for less separation between the higher-order modes
inside the fiber, leading to possible instability.
To still maintain a high beam quality, special care has to be taken when designing the coupling
optics to excite mostly the fundamental mode of the fiber. To contain the light inside the core and reduce
coupling into the cladding, core geometries with a negative curvature have been found to be very
effective in keeping the high field strength away from the surrounding glass structure [3]. These fibers
offer a low loss over a wide wavelength range while still maintaining larger core sizes. There are
two main types which are called Kagome fibers, due to the lattice structure, and antiresonant fibers.
More well-known are single-ring or revolver fibers which build up the core region by surrounding it
with one layer of non-touching rings, or cone-shaped structures (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Depictions of common large-area hollow core fiber designs: (a) Kagome-type fiber; (b) single
ring- or revolver-type fiber; and (c) cone-type fiber.
In order to determine the spectral properties and dynamic behavior of these fibers, complex studies
of their guiding mechanism are required. Many models of varying complexity have been proposed
and compared to analytical calculations as well as experiments. Influences on confinement by the wall
thickness [4,5] and by the cladding structure [6] have been investigated, as well as dispersion of these
fibers [7]. When taking industrial use into consideration, additional influences on the beam properties,
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Fibers 2018, 6, 80
e.g., by bending the fiber, have to be included to achieve an optimized design [8,9]. Therefore,
by tuning fiber structure paramters, like core size, web thickness and structure elements, the fibers can
be tailored for specific purposes and applications such as spectral broadening up to supercontinuum
generation [10] or intense gas-laser interaction over long distances [11].
2.2. Limitations of the Technology

With increasing beam power, one has to look at the limits a hollow core beam transport possesses,
determined by the physics involved. These include the maximum energy of lasers pulses and the
shortest possible pulse length.
The maximum energy transmission in a hollow core fiber is still limited by the destruction of the
silica [12]. The silica structure is not in the center of the beam where the energy density is highest,
but rather in the outer areas. It is important to note that while the fundamental mode of the fiber has
only very little overlap with the structure, the critical point is coupling into the fiber. The fundamental
free-space mode has to excite the fundamental fiber mode, and the matched free-space Gaussian mode
has a slightly higher overlap with the unmodified fiber structure than the fundamental fiber mode.
A small portion of light will overlap directly with the glass struts of the fiber and interact with it.
Using this assumption, one can determine a peak power dependent on the core size and the matched
beam that is coupled into it (see Figure 2). In real-life applications, a reduced coupling accuracy and
slight movement of the beam have to be taken into account.
Figure 2. Schematic light field intensity overlapping with the glass structure in an antiresonant
fiber design.
The coupling efficiency can be calculated theoretically by calculating the overlap of coupled
free-space mode and the fiber eigenmodes. Variations can also be introduced and the results can be
compared to experimental results using low-power beams (see Figure 3).
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Fibers 2018, 6, 80
Figure 3. Transmitted mode content under varying coupling conditions of a hollow core fiber.
Typically, high-power pulses travelling along the fiber will often have enough energy to interact
with the gas inside the hollow core, which will alter the pulse characteristiocs [13–15]. In order to reduce
these effects, the fiber material can be filled with other gases or kept at a vacuum to significantly reduce
any gas interaction. However, the fiber itself will still have a small waveguide dispersion, which will
lead to pulse broadening and chirping. Therefore, if very short pulses below 100 fs are demanded,
the dispersive interaction inside the fiber has to be taken into account and can be precompensated in
the compressor of the coupled laser.
Fibers for infrared (IR) light delivery have been produced for a few years, but transmission at
shorter wavelengths in the visible or even in the ultraviolet (UV) regime is of high interest. Theoretically,
the fundamental guiding mechanism of hollow core fibers allows for structures which transmit in
these wavelength range; however, the real-life loss due to scattering is also growing with smaller
wavelengths. Due to this, the production tolerances are a key factor when designing fibers in the visible
and UV spectral region and currently do not allow for fiber material which can match the attenuation
and stability of IR at smaller wavelengths. In general, achieving low-loss and nearly undisturbed beam
propagation requires a fiber structure which is optimized for the desired transmission window as well
as the production routine.
2.3. Fiber Integration

Bringing the hollow core fiber technology to the industry has been a challenging process. Typically,
laboratory experiments hold a fiber freely in a tabletop setup with microadjusters for low power, or in
a gas cell for tailored nonlinear processes. In both cases, the fiber is prepared for the investigation
which is planned. This, of course, differs vastly from using a fiber as a tool, where it has to perform,
mostly without preparation, in a more demanding environment.
A special connector, which houses the fiber tip in a sealed environment, has been designed (see
Figure 4). The fiber is protected from environmental influences but can also be filled with gas or
evacuated. Differential pumping schemes are also possible by applying different pressures at each
side of the laser light cable. Standard safety features, such as a fiber continuity monitoring, are also
included, as well as the possibility for active cooling of the connector when used with very high power.
The conduit is designed with continuous use in demanding application in mind and can protect the
fiber even after years of continuous bending. The fiber itself is prealigned to very few micron precision
and can be exchanged in few minutes by the use of a flange connector which is easy to adapt.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 80
Figure 4. Ultrafast laser light cable connector with connections for water cooling, evacuation and
safety circuits.
Together with the laser light cable, a modular system, composed of components specially designed
for ultrafast laser beam delivery and applications, has also been introduced (see Figure 5) [16].
These components include a coupling unit, which can accept a wide range of laser beams and adapt
them to be optimally coupled into the fiber. The unit uses a flexible modular design and can also be
integrated into a laser head. On the output side, different beam shaping tools are available, ranging
from collimation units, which prepare a requested beam size, to complex processing heads with
diagnostics, observation and variable beam shaping.
Figure 5. Ultrafast beam delivery system with a beam launching system (BLS) composed of a mode
field adaptation, a laser light cable (LLK) and a modular processing head (MPH).
Whilst the ultrafast laser beam can also be delivered to the workpiece by free-space beam delivery
components, transporting the laser beam by fiber offers several advantages for the laser user.
Integrating the laser source into the application system or machine will be much simpler,
because the flexible beam delivery enables the laser source to be installed separately from the optics,
which focuses the beam into the workpiece. For example, this allows for a much simpler mechanical
165
Fibers 2018, 6, 80
structure and lower moved masses by simply routing the laser light cable, instead of a fixed beam path
using multiple mirrors.
Additionally, the service of the system is becoming much simpler because of the reduced number
of components in the beam path, and the possibility of installing and exchanging a laser light cable with
no or only very little beam alignment. The latter is possible since the fiber is positioned very accurately
in the laser light cable connector and therefore provides an excellent optomechanical reference for the
laser beam.
In summary, this leads to a lower cost of ownership for the complete laser system not only in
capital investment but also running cost. The additional positive side effect is an improved production
uptime of the complete laser application system, which is mainly driven by less complexity and
simplified serviceability.
The combination of optical design tailored specifically for the use in conjunction with hollow
core fibers of different designs as well as rigorous characterization has led to a design, which shows
remarkable stability under varying conditions and with most laser sources.
3. Results
3.1. Performance
Numerous integrations of the ultrafast beam delivery system over the years, with varying laser
pulse characteristics, have been performed. Peak powers of up to a gigawatt and an average power of
200 W have been transmitted with an efficiency between 85% and 93%, depending on the length of the
fiber and the beam quality of the laser coupled into it (see Figure 6 for a selection).
Figure 6. Overview of pulsed laser values which could be coupled and transmitted successfully using
the flexible beam delivery. Each dot represents a parameter pair of the laser source. Picosecond and
femtosecond laser systems are separately marked.
Higher-modes present in the coupled laser beam are more likely to excite higher-order modes
inside the fiber, which reduces transmission and stability. Different fiber designs can influence this
behavior in different strengths. An example for a stable result can be seen in Figure 7, where the
residual movement of the center of intensity of the laser beam at the workpiece is shown. It was
measured while performing strong bending and twist movement of the laser light cable. As can
be seen, the residual movement of the beam, even under strong bending of the laser light cable,
only amounts to very few percentages of the focus spot size, which hardly has any impact on the
typical laser application.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 80
Figure 7. Movement of the focus spot relative to the beam size at the fiber output while moving the
fiber in an application.
3.2. Application
Hollow core fibers can transmit ultrafast beams nearly undisturbed. Due to the wide range
of pulse paramters possible, different residual influences may affect the transmitted beam slightly.
To determine their influence in typical machining applications, many comparative application studies
have been conducted. These include sensing, cutting, drilling, ablation and surface structuring
and modification.
The key parameters for these applications are the focus intensity and focus shape as well as the
pulse shape. All of these can be controlled very precisely when using a hollow core fiber for beam
delivery. The output of the fiber is providing a near single-mode beam with minimal fluctuations and
fixed positions, which allows for a precise processing.
For this investigation, the fiber beam delivery was integrated in different applications and the
results were compared qualitatively with free-space beam paths.
Firstly, cutting results from nitinol stent cutting are shown (see Figure 8). The process parameters
are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Processing parameters of nitinol cutting.
Parameters Value Unit

Laser source Amplitude Satsuma
Pulse length 350 fs
Power 5 W
Repetition rate 0–2 MHz
Beam delivery Photonic Tools
LLK length 3 m
Collimation 100 mm
Air pressue in fiber 5–1000 mbar
Workpiece Nitinol
Wavelength 1030 nm
Polarization circular
Repetition rate 300 kHz
Pulse energy ~8 μJ
Spot size ~12 μm
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Fibers 2018, 6, 80
Figure 8. Comparison of cutting results. Free-space beam delivery on the left and fiber beam delivery
on the right (in co-operation with femtos GmbH).
The comparison shows very similar results with the two different beam delivery methods.
The quality of the cutting edge is of the same quality and the final products could be further processed
without any alteration.
Next, results from silicon surface modification are presented (see Figure 9). A square was scanned
with varying process parameters while incorporating a free-space or fiber beam delivery in the
beam path to the galvanometer scanner. See Table 2 for the corresponding process parameters.
Additionally, the fiber could be used to widen the spectrum of the pulse due to self-phase modulation,
controlled by adjusting the pressure inside the fiber. The spectral width of the pulse was measured
with a spectrometer.
Table 2. Processing parameters of silicon surface modification.
Parameters Value Unit

Laser source Amplitude S-Pulse
Pulse length 750 fs
Power 4 W
Repetition rate 0–300 kHz
Beam delivery Photonic Tools
LLK length 2.5 m
Collimation 100 mm
Air pressue in fiber 5–1000 mbar
Workpiece Polycrystalline silicon
1028 ± 3
Wavelength nm
1030 ± 30
Polarization linear
Repetition rate 100 kHz
Pulse energy 12.5 μJ
Spot size 16 μm
Scan speed 4 mm/s
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Fibers 2018, 6, 80
Figure 9. Comparison of surface modification on polychristalline silicon. A single pass of the laser
over the area is shown at the top and 10 consecutive passes are shown at the bottom. Free-space beam
delivery on the left and fiber beam delivery on the right (in cooperation with Laserzentrum Hannover).
Again, the comparison revealed almost no visible difference between the two beam delivery
solutions. The structures, which depended critically on the pulse parameters in size and depth,
could be reproduced perfectly with 1 pass over the surface as well as 10 consecutive scans over the
same area.
Additionally, a unique feature of the fiber beam delivery was tested and deliberate self-phase
modulation could be introduced to the transmitted pulses in varying strengths. Strong increases
in ablation depth and structure size were observed when using spectrally broadened pulses (see
Figure 10). The pulse bandwidth change from 6 nm to 60 nm revealed a nearly doubled ablation rate
in the application.
Figure 10. Surface modification on polychristalline silicon with spectrally broadened pulses. Ablation
depths and structure sizes with pulse bandwidth change from 6 nm to 60 nm were compared.
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Fibers 2018, 6, 80
4. Conclusions
The use of hollow core fiber for transmission of ultrafast laser pulses in an industrial environment
has been shown for a few years in the IR wavelength of YAG laser systems. The completely fiber-based
beam delivery system introduced by Photonic Tools already addresses most of the application scenarios,
which are actively used. Robot arm applications with hollow core fibers have also been shown.
The comparison of free-space beam delivery and fiber-based solutions shows little to no difference
in the application results. On the contrary, it can even offer opportunities to increase throughput by
using the nonlinear effects inside the hollow core fiber. In a suitable integration, as offered by Photonic
Tools, they can be adjusted precisely.
The optimal fiber structure for industrial appplication is still being improved and optimized,
so understanding the requirements from applications and characterizing hollow core fibers very
rigorously are an essential part of integrating hollow core material into a demanding environment.
Recent fiber developments in the green and UV spectral regions show promise for future applications,
but cannot reach the same level of performance in high-power applications at the moment.
Taking hollow core fiber out of the scientific environment and tweaking it to perform under
diverse conditions is a continuous process, which has made tremendous progress in recent years.
Many industrial ultrafast applications can already use the advantages a fiber beam delivery can offer
in day-to-day usage with high reliability and unaltered results.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, S.E. and B.W.; Data curation, S.E.; Funding acquisition, B.W.;
Investigation, S.E.; Project administration, B.W.; Resources, B.W.; Supervision, B.W.; Writing—original draft,
S.E.; Writing—review & editing, S.E. and B.W.
Funding: This research was funded by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, grant numbers
[13N13920, 13N13924, 02P14K500].
Acknowledgments: We thank J. Düsing from Laserzentrum Hannover and B. Schöps from femtos GmbH for
their cooperation and advise while performing and interpreting the application results.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the
study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to
publish the results.
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171
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Hollow Core Optical Fibers

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Hollow Core

Special Issue Editor

MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade

ISBN 978-3-03921-088-6 (Pbk)

About the Special Issue Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Igor A. Bufetov, Alexey F. Kosolapov, Andrey D. Pryamikov, Alexey V. Gladyshev,

Alice L. S. Cruz, Cristiano M. B. Cordeiro and Marcos A. R. Franco

Matthias Zeisberger, Alexander Hartung and Markus A. Schmidt

Chengli Wei, Curtis R. Menyuk and Jonathan Hu

Hanna Izabela Stawska, Maciej Andrzej Popenda and Elżbieta Bereś-Pawlik

Xiaosheng Huang, Ken-Tye Yong and Seongwoo Yoo

Sebastian Eilzer and Björn Wedel

Received: 15 May 2019; Accepted: 22 May 2019; Published: 24 May 2019

Fibers 2019, 7, 50; doi:10.3390/ﬁb7050050 1 www.mdpi.com/journal/ﬁbers

Funding: This research received no external funding.

Received: 19 November 2018; Accepted: 18 January 2019; Published: 18 February 2019

Keywords: hollow-core photonic crystal ﬁber; gas photonics

Fibers 2019, 7, 16; doi:10.3390/ﬁb7020016 5 www.mdpi.com/journal/ﬁbers

2. Historical Overview of HCPCF

3. HCPCF Fabrication Process: Using Gas to Nano- and Microstructure Glass

4. HCPCF Guidance Mechanisms: Micro-Structuring the Glass to Structure the Light

4.1.1. Historical Account

There are two strategies to guide light in thecore. The

4.2.1. Photonic Tight Binding Model

;ĂͿ ^ŽůŝĚͲƐƚĂƚĞƉŚǇƐŝĐƐ ;ĐͿ 'ƵŝĚĞĚ ƉŚŽƚŽŶŝĐƐ

WŽƚĞŶƚŝĂů s E ĂƚŽŵƐ ĨĨĞĐƚŝǀĞ E ǁĂǀĞŐƵŝĚĞƐ

4.2.2. Engineering PBG in HCPCF

4.3.1. Historical Account

4.3.2. Design Tools for Low-Loss IC-HCPCF

ďсϬ ďсϬ͘Ϯ ďсϬ͘ϱ ďсϭ ďсϭ͘ϱ

;ĚͿ ;ĨͿ ;ŚͿ

4.3.3. Hypocycloidal Core-Contour Kagome Lattice HCPCF

4.3.4. Hypocycloid Core-Contour and Nodeless Tubular Lattice IC HCPCF

4.4. Difference between ARROW, PBG and IC

4.5. Core Modal Properties of HCPCF

;ĂͿ &DOFXODWHGFRUHPRGHV ;ďͿ 6ðPHDVXUHGFRUHPRGHV

Glass (n=1.45) 

;ĂͿ ;ďͿ ;ĐͿ

4.6. HCPCF Prospects and Future Trends

5.1. Non Linear Optics

5.1.1. High-Power Laser Beam Delivery

5.1.2. Pulse Compression

Table 1. Representative pulse compression performances in HCPCF technology.

5.1.3. Raman Comb Generation

5.1.4. Supercontinuum Generation

5.2. Plasma Photonics

5.2.1. Wave-Induced Plasma

5.2.2. Photo-Induced Plasma

5.3. Atom and Molecular Optics

5.3.1. Atom Optics

5.3.2. Novel Stimulated Raman Scattering Conﬁguration

5.4. Quantum Information

6. Conclusions and Future Trends

Received: 15 May 2018; Accepted: 5 June 2018; Published: 7 June 2018

Fibers 2018, 6, 39; doi:10.3390/ﬁb6020039 63 www.mdpi.com/journal/ﬁbers

2. Physical Demonstrative Approach to the Waveguiding Properties of RF

3. RF with Various Cladding Structures

3.1. RFs with Touching and Non-Touching Capillaries in a Cladding

WŽƚĞŶƚŝĂů s E ĂƚŽŵƐ ĨĨĞĐƚŝǀĞ E ǁĂǀĞŐƵŝĚĞƐ

;ĂͿ &DOFXODWHGFRUHPRGHV ;ďͿ 6ðPHDVXUHGFRUHPRGHV

Glass (n=1.45)