Surface plasmon resonance induced tunable ultra-wideband polarization filters based on gold film coated photonic crystal fibers

Surface plasmon resonance induced tunable broadband polarization filters based on photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) were designed and investigated. The characteristics of the designed PCF were calculated by using the finite element method (FEM). The air holes in the PCFs which were arranged in hexagonal lattice were of the same size except one big air hole. The big air hole which was located on the right side of the fiber core was designed to be coated with gold film in the inner wall. Because of the arrangement of the big air hole, the surface plasmon resonance inspired on the surface of gold film was quite different for the two orthogonal polarized incident lights. As the edge of the big air hole approaching the adjacent air holes, the plasmon modes were influenced strongly by the adjacent air holes and as a results the cascaded resonances appeared. The index-matching liquid infilling in the big air hole was used to adjust the resonant wavelengths and strength. Numerical simulation results showed that the bandwidth of the polarization filter was 1200 nm covering the wavelengths from 1.0 μm to 2.2 μm with high extinction ratio (ER).