Hollow core optical fiber enabled by epsilon-near-zero material

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Optical Engineering
• Materials Science

Background:

• Hollow core optical fibers are crucial for guiding light in an air core.
• Existing designs utilize various light-confining mechanisms.
• There is a continuous need for lower-loss optical fiber structures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a novel hollow core optical fiber design.
• To explore a new light-confining mechanism using epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials.
• To investigate the impact of ENZ cladding on waveguide loss.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a hollow core optical fiber with an ENZ material cladding.
• Characterization of light confinement and propagation loss.
• Comparison of loss with and without ENZ material coating.

Main Results:

• The ENZ cladding confines light via total internal reflection.
• Addition of an ENZ layer (e.g., indium tin oxide) significantly reduces waveguide loss.
• Further loss reduction is achievable with lower-loss ENZ materials.

Conclusions:

• A novel hollow core fiber utilizing ENZ cladding for light guiding is presented.
• This fiber architecture offers significantly reduced propagation loss.
• Potential applications include laser surgery, spectroscopy, gas sensing, and optical communication.