Temperature-based dispersion compensating ability of a photonic crystal fiber

The effects of temperature on the dispersion properties of a square lattice photonic crystal fiber (PCF) have been studied. Holes in the cladding part of PCF are packed with a semi-conducting material, InSb, whose characteristics depend upon temperature in the terahertz optical frequency. The effective index of PCF is calculated with the help of a semivectorial finite difference technique. Using the effective index values, computation of chromatic dispersion parameters is done, which are plotted against wavelength. Four temperatures have been considered in our work from 290 to 335 K in equal steps. The results depict that as the temperature rises, the values of effective indexes of PCF decrease while dispersion of the fiber increases. In places where temperature is not constant and keeps varying, this type of PCF can be installed for multiple optical channel dispersion compensating applications. It has also been observed that with the change in surrounding temperatures, mode carrying capacity of the fiber remains unaffected, which makes this fiber suitable for special applications, such as distributed perimeter sensing of chemical plants. (C) 2021 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)