Design of thermo-tunable couplers based on solid core photonic band-gap fibers

Abstract

In this work, we propose low polarization-dependent thermo-tunable couplers based on solid-core photonic band-gap fibers (PBGFs) filled with high temperature-dependent liquid. Firstly, by employing a full-vectorial finite element method, the temperature dependence on photonic band-gap and effective indices of the fundamental modes are investigated, and we numerically confirm that thermo-tunable couplers based on solid-core PBGFs can be realized. In addition, by evaluating the structural parameters dependence on coupling length and normalized output power for x- and y-polarized waves, we present a design method for the low polarization-dependent thermo-tunable couplers based on solid-core PBGFs.