The Airy fibre: an optical fibre that guides light diffracted by a circular aperture

TL;DR

This paper introduces an innovative optical fibre designed to guide light in an Airy pattern mode, demonstrating high mode match and specific attenuation, with guidance mechanisms akin to photonic bandgap guidance.

Contribution

The authors designed and fabricated an optical fibre that specifically guides an Airy pattern mode, a novel approach in optical fibre technology.

Findings

Attenuation of 11.0 dB/km at 1550 nm

Mode match of 93.7% with ideal Airy pattern

Far field resembles a top-hat beam

Abstract

We have designed and made an optical fibre that guides an approximate Airy pattern as one of its guided modes. The fibre's attenuation was 11.0 dB/km at 1550 nm wavelength, the match between the fibre's mode and the ideal infinite Airy pattern was 93.7%, and the far field resembled a top-hat beam. The guidance mechanism has strong similarities to photonic bandgap guidance.