Graded Index Microstructured Polymer Optical Fibers for Terahertz Applications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel graded index microstructured polymer optical fiber designed for terahertz applications, demonstrating reduced dispersion and loss, leading to improved pulse transmission and bandwidth over existing porous fibers.

Contribution

The paper presents a new fiber design with variable air-hole arrays that achieves lower dispersion and loss, enhancing terahertz guidance performance.

Findings

Lower chromatic and intermodal dispersion

Reduced pulse distortion and higher bandwidth

More reliable excitation compared to porous fibers

Abstract

Graded index microstructured polymer optical fiber incorporating a specially designed air-hole array featuring variable air-hole diameters and inter-hole separation is proposed, fabricated and characterized in view of the fiber potential applications in low-loss, low-dispersion terahertz guidance. The proposed fiber features simultaneously low chromatic and intermodal dispersions, as well as low loss in the terahertz spectral range. We then experimentally demonstrate that proposed fibers exhibit smaller pulse distortion, larger bandwidth and more reliable excitation when compared to the porous fibers of comparable geometry.