Broad-band robustly single-mode hollow-core PCF by resonant filtering of higher order modes

Abstract: We propose and theoretically analyse a novel hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (PCF) that is engineered so as to strongly suppress higher order modes, i.e., to provide robust LP${01}$ single-mode guidance in all the wavelength ranges where the fibre guides with low loss. Encircling the core is a single ring of non-touching glass elements whose modes are tailored to ensure resonant phase-matched coupling to higher-order core modes, causing them to leak at a very high rate into the supporting solid glass sheath. Using a model based on coupled capillary waveguides, as well as full vectorial finite element modelling, we show that this modal filtering effect depends on only one dimensionless geometrical parameter, akin to the well-known $d/{\Lambda}$ parameter for endlessly single-mode solid-core PCF. The design is scalable up to large core sizes and is predicted to deliver LP${01}$ mode losses of some $10$s of dB/km in multiple transmission windows, the broadest of which spans more than an octave. At the same time, higher order core modes have losses that are typically $1000$s of times higher than the LP$_{01}$ mode. The fibre is of great potential interest in applications such as high-power laser beam delivery, gas-based nonlinear optics, laser particle delivery, chemical sensing and laser gyroscopes.