Numerical investigation and optimization of a photonic crystal fiber for simultaneous dispersion compensation over S+C+L wavelength bands

In this paper, we numerically investigate and optimize the profile of a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) that can eliminate the residual dispersion from the telecom link as well as can provide identical dispersion compensation over S + C + L bands. A full-vectorial finite element method combined with genetic algorithm is used to optimize the fiber's profile as well as to accurately determine its modal properties. The optimized PCF exhibits a dispersion of -98.3 ps/nm/km with a variance of +/- 0.55 ps/nm/km from 1.48 mu m to 1.63 mu m (i.e., over 150 nm bandwidth) and a zero dispersion slope. Macro-bending loss performance of the designed PCF is also studied and it is found that the fiber shows low bending losses for the smallest feasible bending radius of 5 mm. Further, sensitivity analysis has been carried out for the proposed fiber design and it has been found that a +/- 2% change in the fiber parameters may lead to a +/- 8% shift of the dispersion from its nominal value. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.