Optical properties of photonic crystal fiber with integral micron-sized Ge wire

Using a selective hole closure technique, individual hollow channels in silica-air photonic crystal fibers are filled with pure Ge by pumping in molten material at high pressure. The smallest channels filled so far are 600 nm in diameter, which is 10x smaller than in previous work. Electrical conductivity and micro-Raman measurements indicate that the resulting cm-long wires have a high degree of crystallinity. Optical transmission spectra are measured in a sample with a single wire placed adjacent to the core of an endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fiber. This renders the fiber birefringent, as well as causing strongly polarization-dependent transmission losses, with extinction ratios as high as 30 dB in the visible. In the IR, anti-crossings between the glass-core mode and resonances on the high index Ge wire create a series of clear dips in the spectrum transmitted through the fiber. The measurements agree closely with the results of finite-element simulations in which the wavelength dependence of the dielectric constants is taken fully into account. A toy model based on a multilayer structure is used to help interpret the results. Finally, the temperature dependence of the anti-crossing wavelengths is measured, the preliminary results suggesting that the structure might form the basis of a compact optical thermometer. Since Ge provides electrical conductance together with low-loss guidance in the mid-IR, Ge-filled PCF seems likely to lead to new kinds of in-fiber detector and sensor, as well as having potential uses in ultra-low-threshold nonlinear optical devices.