Temperature dependence of beat-length and confinement loss in an air-core photonic band-gap fiber

The temperature dependence of polarization-maintaining (PM) property and loss in a highly-birefringent air-core photonic band-gap fiber (PBF) is investigated. The effects of temperature variation on the effective index, beat-length and confinement loss are studied numerically by using the full-vector finite element method (FEM). It is found that, the PM property of this PBF is insensitive to the temperature, and the temperature-dependent beat-length coefficient can be as low as 2.86×10−8 m/°C, which is typically 200 times less than those of conventional panda fibers, the PBF has a stable confinement loss of 0.01 dB/m over the temperature range of −30 to 20 °C for the slow axis at the wavelength of 1.55 μm. The PBF with ultra-low temperature-dependent PM property and low loss can reduce the thermally induced polarization instability apparently in interferometric applications such as resonant fiber optic gyroscope (RFOG), optical fiber sensors, and so on.