Modelling and simulation of a porous core photonic crystal fibre for terahertz wave propagation

A porous core photonic crystal fibre based on conventional hexagonal lattice cladding is proposed for propagating terahertz radiation. The structure is designed and theoretically investigated using full vectorial finite element method. Simulation results show that at 300 mu m core diameter, with a high porosity of 85%, and an operating frequency of 1.3 THz, the proposed fibre reduces the bulk absorption loss of cyclic olefin copolymer (TOPAS) by about 81%, which corresponds to an ultra-low effective material loss value of 0.039 cm(-1). Furthermore, the proposed fibre shows near zero dispersion coefficient of 0.47 ps/THz/cm with an extremely small variation of 0.05 over a broad 1.3 THz bandwidth; with confinement and bending losses investigated and found to be negligibly low. It is anticipated that the proposed waveguide can potentially be used for short range transmission of terahertz radiation in the communication window.