HIGHLY DISPERSIVE LOW LOSS PHOTONIC CRYSTAL FIBERS FOR ULTRA SHORT PULSE COMPRESSION

To provide Navy with high energy ultra short pulse (USP) laser technology, Omega Optics Inc. and the University of Texas at Austin propose a low loss highly anomalous dispersive photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for high energy USP compression. The microstructure of a photonic crystal fiber was simulated with anomalous dispersion D greater than 17.5Kps/nm/km. The effective nonlinearity is 0.7 W-1/km, which is 5 to 40 times smaller than standard single mode fiber. For the same input pulse, compared with standard single mode silicon fiber (D ~ -18 ps/nmkm), the dispersion length is reduced 972 times, and the peak power of fundamental soliton is increased by 4860 (972x5) to 38880 (972x40) times. It is anomalous dispersion throughout the entire transmission band, and its variation with wavelength is much larger compared with that of a conventional step-index fiber. In Phase I, the length of the photonic crystal fiber will be designed to construct the soliton effect compressor. To prove the feasibility of the USP compression technology, the design and fabrication of highly dispersive PCF will be performed, and high power pulse compression will be demonstrated.