Exceptional polarization purity in antiresonant hollow-core optical fibres

Hollow core optical fibres with comparable attenuation to silica fibres between 600 and 1100 nm

“…Clearly, NANF technology is still in its infancy, with considerable theoretical and technological progress still required to transfer its impact from the research lab to mainstream commercial applications. However, the results presented here, combined with the staggering recent progress in other areas 29,35 and with theoretical predictions indicating that they are still far from fundamental limits 25 , show that hollowcore NANFs are ready to make dramatic contributions to several rapidly developing applications. For the first time in 50 years we might have finally identified an optical fibre technology with the potential to complement, and at least in the cases outlined above, replace all-solid silica fibres.…”

“…The use of hollow-core NANFs in these applications would not only bring a longer reach than is possible with all-solid fibre through a lower loss, but also a substantial reduction in other mechanisms that impair the transmission of optical qubits. It would enable, for example, orders of magnitude reduction in polarisation cross-talk and back-scattering over conventional fibres 35 , as well as a reduced chromatic dispersion, nonlinearity, and sensitivity of the propagation time and phase to the external temperature 33 , 34 . Qubit transmission at wavelengths shorter than ~1000 nm would also allow the use of cheaper and higher performance silicon single-photon avalanche photodiodes (SI SPADs) 61 , enabling the more widespread adoption of quantum key distribution devices and services 62 .…”

“…The low dispersion and wide bandwidth (Fig. 4c ), combined with a superior thermal stability 34 , low nonlinear coefficient, and the recently demonstrated capacity to maintain pure polarisation states of NANFs 35 , can also impact the delivery of ultra-short pulses from Ti:sapphire laser systems operating around 850 nm. This could allow, for example, passive synchronisation with unprecedentedly high stability and low timing jitter between independent lasers, for use in pump-probe spectroscopy 63 , frequency metrology 64 , and for precise timing distribution within large scale facilities, e.g., free electron lasers 65 .…”

“…The fibres are effectively single moded, despite large core diameters 6 to 8 times those of comparable single-mode solid core fibres 27 . Besides, they exhibit a near-zero chromatic dispersion at all low-loss wavelengths, considerably lower sensitivity than glass fibres to changes in the external environment [33][34][35] , and predicted >1000 times lower optical nonlinearity 36 and higher laser damage threshold 37 .…”

Design of a Surface Plasmon Resonance Temperature Sensor with Multi-Wavebands Based on Conjoined-Tubular Anti-Resonance Fiber

“…Hollow-core anti-resonant fibers (HC-ARFs), which are based on the anti-resonance effect for energy propagation, have become a research hotspot in the field of microstructure fiber research [1][2][3]. This fiber type usually possesses a single-ring structure and exhibits advantages of simple structure, high transmission quality, and large transmission bandwidth [4][5][6][7][8][9]. As the core surface is usually a negative curvature cycloid, it is also called a hollow-core negative curvature fiber.…”