Multiple resonant coupling mechanism for suppression of higher-order modes in all-solid photonic bandgap fibers with heterostructured cladding

In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism for suppression of higher-order modes (HOMs), namely multiple resonant coupling, in all-solid photonic bandgap fibers (PBGFs) with effectively large core diameters. In an analogy to the well-known tight-binding theory in solid-state physics, multiple anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) modes bound in designedly arranged defects in the cladding make up Bloch states and resultant photonic bands with a finite effective-index width, which contribute to the suppression of HOMs. In particular, contrary to the conventional method for the HOM suppression using the index-matching of the HOMs in the core of the PBGF and the defect mode arranged in the cladding, the proposed mechanism guarantees a broadband HOM suppression without a precise structural design. This effect is explained by the multiple resonant coupling, as well as an enhanced confinement loss mechanism which occurs near the condition satisfying the multiple resonant coupling. Moreover, we show that the proposed structure exhibits a lower bending loss characteristic when compared to the conventional all-solid PBGFs. The simultaneous realization of the single-mode operation and the low bending loss property is due to the novel cladding concept named as heterostructured cladding. The proposed structure also resolves the issue for the increased confinement loss property in the first-order photonic bandgap (PBG) at the same time. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America