This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LPT.2016.2517083, IEEE Photonics
Technology Letters
> REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (DOUBLE-CLICK HERE TO EDIT) <
A Novel Low Loss, Highly Birefringent
Photonic Crystal Fiber in THz Regime
G.K.M. Hasanuzzaman, Student Member, IEEE and Md. Selim Habib, Student Member, IEEE
Abstract—We present a new kind of dual-hole unit based
porous-core hexagonal photonic crystal fiber (H-PCF) with low
loss and high birefringence in the THz regime. The proposed
fiber offers simultaneously high birefringence and low effective
material loss (EML) in the frequency range of 0.5-0.85 THz with
single mode operation. An air-hole pair is used inside the core
instead of elliptical shaped air-holes to introduce asymmetry for
attaining high birefringence; where the birefringence can be
enhanced by rotating the dual-hole unit axis of orientation. The
proposed H-PCF provides a birefringence of ~0.033 and an EML
of 0.43dB/cm at operating frequency of 0.85 THz.
Index Terms—Terahertz wave guidance; Photonic crystal
fiber; High birefringence; Effective material loss.
I. INTRODUCTION
R ecently,the limelight has turned towards the latest hot
topic terahertz (THz) band ranging from 0.1 to 10 THz
due to its enormous applications in the field of sensing,
imaging, security, biotechnology, spectroscopy, and
astronomy [1-3]. Although, there has been a remarkable
technological advancement in THz wave generation and
detection techniques, still to date most of the THz systems that
are commercially available are based on the free space
propagation due to the lack of low loss, flexible and
commercially available waveguides [3, 4]. Albeit, dry air
exhibits lowest absorption and dispersion than other material
in THz band, free space propagation is not enough convenient
due to unavoidable losses introduce during coupling,
transporting and managing THz beam [3-6]. Moreover,
waveguides are indispensable in certain cases; when the
application point is inaccessible, it is required to interact with
the sample strongly and to confine or focus to a smaller spot
size [5]. Still, it is a challenge to implement flexible, efficient
and low-loss transmission of broadband THz waves for long
length delivery. In order to lower the propagation loss of a
THz waveguides, an effective approach is to confine large part
of radiation in air while propagate small portion to material [7,
8].
Different types of THz waveguides have been addressed
both theoretically and experimentally based on metal wires
and dielectric sub-wavelength fibers. These include dielectric
metal-coated tubes, metallic wires, Bragg fibers, and all-
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology, Rajshahi-
6204, Bangladesh (g.kibria82@yahoo.com, selim041073@yahoo.com).
Md. Selim Habib is also with the DTU Fotonik, Department of Photonics
Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby,
Denmark. (e-mail: seha@fotonik.dtu.dk).
1041-1135 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
dielectric sub-wavelength polymer fibers [9-11]. Though sub-
wavelength fibers and metallic wires exhibit low absorption
loss in THz range, most of the field propagates outside the
waveguide core, thus resulting in strong coupling to the
environment. On the contrary solid core of the conventional
photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) shows a high material
absorption loss [11], which is almost equal to the bulk material
absorption loss. Recently the spotlight has turned to porous-
core photonic crystal fiber, which offers relatively lower
absorption loss than a PCF with porous cladding or porous-
core fiber with air cladding [3,4,7,8]. Along with the low loss
property, high birefringence is also desired in numerous
applications like sensing, communications, and polarized
terahertz filters [6,12]. Two popular methods are mainly used
to achieve high birefringence in porous fibers just like as
conventional PCFs. One is to break the symmetry of the fiber
cladding and another is to introduce asymmetry to the fiber
core [6]. For the first time, Atakaramians et al. [13] designed
and fabricated Polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA) based
rectangular porous fibers to achieve low loss and high
birefringence. The reported value of birefringence is 0.012 at
f= 0.65 THz. A birefringence level of 10-2 has been achieved
by Chen et al. [14] by means of a squeezed lattice elliptical-
hole. As elliptical air-holes introduce additional fabrication
challenge and reduce coupling efficiency, this kind of porous
fiber is inconvenient for practical application [6]. A Topas
based porous fiber with a hexagonal array of sub-wavelength
elliptical holes have been identified as a means of achieving
low loss, high birefringence and single mode THz guidance by
Chen et al. [6]. Numerical investigations in [6] show that
birefringence can be enhanced by rotating the major axis
direction of the elliptical air-holes and there exists an optimal
rotating angle at 30°. However, this kind of elliptical air-hole
based fiber is difficult to fabricate and a certain amount of
power is propagating outside the fiber structure due to air
cladding.
In this paper, we have demonstrated a novel and relatively
simple approach of attaining high birefringence and low loss
simultaneously without using elliptical air-holes as most of
literature used to achieve high birefringence properties. The
proposed PCF incorporates both a porous-core and also a
porous-cladding of hexagonal array structure. Instead of
inserting single elliptical air-hole we have introduced two
circular air-holes of same size inside the core, thereby the
proposed fiber reduces fabrication difficulties and we define
the air-hole pair as dual-hole unit. The axis of orientation of
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LPT.2016.2517083, IEEE Photonics
> REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (DOUBLE-CLICK HERE TO EDIT) <
the dual-hole unit is rotated to obtain high birefringence.
Numerical results show that rotation angle of 30° exhibits
optimal results at which the fiber exhibits high birefringence
and considerable low absorption loss with single mode
operation.
II. GEOMETRYOF THE PROPOSED DESIGN
The proposed H-PCF is based on a dual-hole unit where the
two small air-holes in one unit can be effectively viewed as an
elliptical air-hole as shown in Fig.1. Hexagonal lattice of three
air-hole rings have been used in both core and cladding to
reduce complexity. In the cladding region, the spacing
between two adjacent air-holes on two adjacent rings is
denoted as Λs. Dcore denotes the core diameter, where diameter
of the core and cladding air-holes are labeled as dc and d
respectively (see Fig.1). Λc stands for unit to unit distance
whereas H is the centre to centre distance between two air-
holes of a dual-hole unit. Furthermore, the orientation of air-
holes inside the core at different rotation angle of the proposed
porous-core hexagonal PCF is depicted in Fig.2. The size and
the rotation angle of the air-holes in the core play vital role for
attaining high birefringence and low absorption loss. The
Fig.1. Cross section of the proposed hexagonal structure with three air-hole rings in the cladding and three air-hole rings in the core at rotation angle 900.
(a)
Fig.2. Anti-clockwise rotation of the axis of orientation of dual-hole unit (a) 00 (b) 150, and (c) 300.
III. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The simulations are performed using commercially
available finite-element method based COMSOL software. A
circular perfectly matched layer is used outside the fiber in
order to model the loss. In this paper, birefringence is obtained
by introducing dual-hole unit circular air-holes inside the core.
The axis direction of the dual-hole unit might play an
important role in introducing asymmetry [6] and hence the
birefringence might be varied when one rotates the axis
direction. Birefringence B can be obtained by the following
equation [8]
B =| nx − n y | (1)
where B is the birefringence, nx and nyare the refractive indices
1041-1135 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Technology Letters
2
parameters used for the simulations are Dcore =350 µm, d= 286
µm, Λs= 318 µm, Λc=49.3 µm, dc= 22.68 µm and H=24.5µm.
The fiber design parameters in our numerical simulations
confirm total internal reflection (TIR) guiding mechanism.
The air-hole diameter to pitch ratio in the cladding d/Λs is kept
0.90 throughout the simulation. The reason of choosing d/Λs =
0.90 is that it allows low confinement loss as well as reduce
fabrication difficulties. If we choose d/Λs smaller than 0.90
than the index difference between core and cladding would
reduce which results in a low confinement of light in the core
and confinement loss will increase. Again high air filling ratio
with d/Λs =0.95 will enhance additional fabrication challenge.
We used a cyclic-olefin copolymer (COC) with the trade name
TOPAS as background material. The selection based on of its
unique and beneficial properties which include low bulk
material loss of 0.2 cm-1[4], constant refractive index n =
1.5258 in the THz spectrum which is beneficial for near zero
dispersion [15], humidity insensitivity [8], chemically
inertness with special bio-sensing properties and does not
absorb water [8]. The air-holes are filled with dry air which is
transparent in the THz regime [6].
(b) (c)
of x- and y- polarization respectively. The direction of x and y
polarization are indicated in Fig.2. The birefringence as a
function of frequency at different rotation angle is shown in
Fig. 3. It is seen from Fig. 3 that the birefringence increases
gradually with the increase of rotation angle. When the
rotation angle becomes 300, the birefringence reaches the
zenith point. Further increment of rotation angle, there is a
decrement of birefringence. The structure of the fiber and the
layout of air-holes in the core explain the angle-dependent
variation. For example, when the angle is rotated to 30°, there
exists the most difference of the porosity between the two
orthogonal polarizations directions corresponds to the
maximal birefringence. It should be noted that, when being
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LPT.2016.2517083, IEEE Photonics
Technology Letters
> REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (DOUBLE-CLICK HERE TO EDIT) < 3

rotated to 60°, the geometric configuration of the fiber is compactness the fiber should be as thin as possible
identical to that of un-rotated state owing to the six-fold [7].Therefore, there must be a design compromising to tune
symmetry of the hexagonal porous fiber. The birefringence as the properties suitably to design optimized waveguides for
high as ~ 0.033 is achieved at frequency 0.85 THz which is THz applications. Therefore, we have chosen 350µm as
much higher compared with those reported on Refs. [13-14]. optimum core diameter.
0.035 0
0.60 10
θ = 00

Effective material loss (dB/cm)

θ = 150 0.55

Confinement loss (dB/cm)

0.030 -1
θ = 300 10
Birefringence

0.50
0.025 θ = 450
0.45 10
-2
0.020
0.40
-3
0.015 0.35 10
0.010 0.30 Effective material loss for x-polarization
-4
Effective material loss for x-polarization 10
0.25 Confinement loss for x-polarization
0.005
0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.70 0.75 0.8 0.85 Confinement loss for y-polarization -5
0.20 10
Frequency (THz) 0.65 0.5
0.7 0.75 0.8 0.850.55 0.6
Fig. 3.Birefringence as function of frequency for different rotation angle with Frequency (THz)
a core diameter of 350 µm. Fig. 5. Effective material loss and confinement loss as a function of
frequency.
Effective material loss (EML) or absorption loss (αeff) is
used to investigate the loss property of the PCFs for terahertz Figure 5 depicts the effective material loss and confinement
frequencies. Effective material loss can be calculated by the loss as a function of frequency at θ=30o. The EMLs of x- and
following equation [15] y- polarized modes are 0.43dB/cm and 0.54dB/cm,
respectively at 0.85 THz. Therefore, the loss of x- polarization
e 1 2
( 0 m0 ) 2 ∫A na mat E dA mode is decreased to 50% of its bulk material loss which is
a eff = mat
(2) good enough for practical applications. Moreover the EML of
2∫All S z dA
x- polarization is smaller than that of y-polarization. More
where εo and µo are the permittivity and the permeability electromagnetic fields exist in Topas for y- polarization since
respectively in the vacuum, αmatis the material absorption loss, the refractive index of y-polarized mode is higher than x-
nmatis the refractive index of the background material. Another polarized mode. It can also be seen from Fig. 5 the calculated
kind of loss mechanism occurs in a photonic crystal fiber is value of confinement loss is far below the level of effective
known as confinement loss which usually occurs due to the material loss and hence can be neglected.
finite extent of the periodic cladding and is obtained from the All simulations in our design are performed under the single
imaginary part of the complex refractive index, neff is given by mode condition which is determined by a parameter named V-
α CL = 8.686k 0 Im(neff ) × 10 −2 dB/cm (3) parameter expressed by [6]
Where, f is the frequency of the light, c is the speed of the 2πrf
V= n 2 co − n 2 cl ≤ 2.405 (4)
light in vacuum and Im(neff) is the imaginary part of the c
refractive index of the guided mode. where r is the radius of the fiber core, f is the frequency, c is
0.65 -1
Effective material loss (dB/cm)

EMLfor x-polarization 10 the velocity of light in vacuum and nco and ncl are the effective
Confinement loss (dB/cm)

EML for y-polarization indices of the fiber core and cladding respectively. As the
0.60 Confinement loss for x-polarization -2
Confinement loss for y-polarization 10 cladding structure is mostly holey, ncl can be approximated as
0.55
1 [4,16]. V-parameter as a function of frequency is depicted in
-3
10 Fig. 6 which shows that the single mode cutoff frequency is
0.50 around 0.85 THz. Although the single mode condition exists at
-4
10 a frequency lower than 0.5 THz, due to the relatively low
0.45 value of birefringence in this band, simulations are performed
-5
10 over 0.5 to 0.85 THz frequency range.
0.40 1.6
-6
10 Rotation angle θ = 300
300 325 350 375 400
Core Diameter Dcore(m m)
V parameter

1.4
Fig. 4.Effective material loss and confinement loss as function of core
diameter at 0.85 THz.
Figure 4 shows the variation of effective material loss and 1.2
x-polarization
confinement loss as a function of core diameter. It is seen y-polarization
from Fig. 4 that the increment of core diameter causes the 1.0
0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85
effective material loss to increase and confinement loss to Frequency (THz)
decrease. But at the same time the total fiber diameter also Fig. 6.V-parameter as a function of frequency at optimal rotation angle 300 for
increases with the increment of core diameter. Moreover, fiber x- and y- polarization.
thickness is also an important parameter for the THz Power flow distribution in the z-direction for two orthogonal
application and its flexibility. In order to be flexible and for polarization modes at different rotation angle is shown in

1041-1135 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LPT.2016.2517083, IEEE Photonics
Technology Letters
> REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (DOUBLE-CLICK HERE TO EDIT) < 4

Fig.7 at 0.85 THz. The figures indicate that the mode power is structure [18].The design proposed here is relatively simper
well confined in the fiber core. and includes only circular shaped air-holes in hexagonal
lattice. Therefore, the proposed structure can be fabricated by
using most versatile stack and draw technology.
X- Pol. IV. CONCLUSION
We have designed and analyzed a novel single mode THz-
PCF with high birefringence and low losses. To attain high
(a) (b) (c) birefringence, a dual-hole unit has been used instead of single
elliptical air-hole which might reduce fabrication difficulties.
Numerical investigations show that birefringence can be
Y- Pol.
enhanced by rotating the dual-hole unit axis of orientation and
there exist an optimum rotation angle at 300. Birefringence of
(d) (e) (f)
~ 0.033 and EML of 0.43dB/cm was obtained at frequency
Fig. 7. Power flow distributions in the z direction for x- and y- polarization. 0.85 THz with very low confinement loss. The proposed THz-
Power flow distributions are shown for fundamental modes at 0.85. THz. (a) PCF can be beneficial for polarization maintaining THz wave
(b) and (c) for x-polarization at 00, 150, and 300 rotation angles respectively. guidance with potential applications like polarized THz filters
(d), (e) and (f) for y-polarization at00, 150, and 300 rotation angle respectively.
and sensors.
Another important property that represents the power flow References
distribution of different regions named fraction of mode power [1] Q. Chen et al, “Near-field terahertz imaging with a dynamic
can be estimated by the following equation [6]. aperture,”Opt. Lett.vol.25 no.15, pp.1122-1124,2000.
[2] A. Hassani et al., “Porous polymer fibers for low-loss Terahertz
∫ S Z dA guiding,” Opt. Express, vol.16, no.9, pp.6340-6351,2008.
η =
' X
(5) [3] M. Uthman et al., “Design and characterization of low-loss porous-
∫ S Z dA core photonic crystal fiber,” IEEE Photon. J., vol. 4, no. 6, pp.
all
2315-2325, Dec. 2012.
X may be one of three regions among air-holes in core, [4] S. F. Kaijage, Z. Ouyang, and X. Jin, “Porous-Core Photonic
background material and air cladding. Figure 8 shows the Crystal Fiber for Low Loss Terahertz Wave Guiding,” IEEE
Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 25, no. 15, pp. 1454-1457, Aug. 2013.
fraction of power in different regions as a function of [5] S.Atakaramians et al. ,“Direct probing of evanescent field for
frequency for two orthogonal polarization modes at optimum characterization of porous terahertz fibers,” Appl. Phys. Lett. vol.
rotation angle of 300. It is seen from Fig. 8 that about 32.5% of 98, pp.121104-1,121104-3,2011.
total power confines in core air-holes for x-polarization and [6] N. Chen, J. Liang, and L. Ren, “High birefrience, low-loss porous
fiber for single-mode terahertz-wave guidance,” J. Appl. Opt., vol.
28% for y-polarization at operating frequency f = 0.85 THz. 52, no. 21, pp. 5297-5302, Jul. 2013.
One of the most noticeable points is that all the power is [7] K. Nielsen, et al., “Porous-core honeycomb bandgap THz fiber,”
confined inside the proposed fiber. But a fraction of light Opt. Lett., vol. 36, no. 5, pp.666-668, Mar. 2011.
energy is transported outside the fiber reported in ref.[6]. [8] H. Bao et al., “Fabrication and characterization of porous-core
60 honeycomb bandgap THz fibers,” Opt. Exp., vol. 20, no. 28, pp.
Rotation Angle = 300 29507-29517, Dec.2012.
Fraction of power(%)

Topas y-pol. Topas x-pol. [9] A. Dupuis, K. Stoeffler, B. Ung, C. Dubois, and M. Skorobogatiy,
50
“Transmission measurements of hollow-core THz Bragg fibers,”J.
40 Opt. Soc. Amer. B,vol.28, no.4, pp. 896–907, Apr. 2011.
Air cladding x-pol.
Air core x-pol. [10] L.-J. Chen et al., “Lowloss subwavelength plastic fiber for
30 terahertz waveguiding,” Opt. Lett., vol. 31, no.3, pp.308–310,2006.
Air cladding y-pol.
[11] H.Han, et al., “Terahertz pulse propagationin a plastic photonic
20 crystal fiber,”Appl.Phys. Lett.,vol. 80, no. 15, pp.2634–2636, 2002.
Air core y-pol.
[12] Y. Guo-Bing et al., “High birefringence, low loss terahertz
10 photonic crystal fibres with zero dispersion at 0.3 THz,” Chin.
0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85
Frequency (THz) Phys. B, vol.20, no.9, 090701-1-090701-4,2011.
Fig. 8. Fraction of power localized in air-core, air cladding and Topas for both [13] S. Atakaramians et al., “THz porous fibers: design, fabrication and
orthogonal polarization modes for 300 rotation angle within the single mode experimental characterization,” Opt. Exp., vol.17, no.16,
operating region. pp.14053–14062, Jul.2009.
[14] H. B. Chen, D. R. Chen, and Z. Hong, “Squeezed lattice elliptical-
Finally, we would like to address the fabrication feasibility
hole terahertz fiber with high birefringence,”Appl. Opt. vol. 48,
of the proposed design. At present PCFs fabrication is no no.20, pp.3943–3947,2009.
longer a changeling issue due to the intense technological [15] J. Liang et al., “Broadband, low-loss, dispersion flattened porous-
advancement. Especially PCFs for terahertz frequency regime core photonic bandgap fiber for terahertz (THz)-wave
propagation,” J. Opt. Commun., vol. 295, pp.257–261, Jan. 2013.
application with 20 to 40 µm inner pitch dimension are easier
[16] M. M. Shaker et al.,“A new approach for representing photonic
to fabricate than those PCFs operating at optical frequencies crystal fiber index profile to determine their optical
with sub-micrometer pitch [3]. General purpose and several characteristics,”Iraqi J. Electr. Electron. Eng., vol. 7, no.1,pp.73–
special purpose PCFs are routinely being fabricated by NKT 77,2011.
[17] Photonic Crystal Fiber, NKT photonics [online] available:
photonics using most versatile stack and draw method [17]. http://www.nktphotonics.com/fiber [Accessed: 15th August 2014].
Recently Bao et al. [8] has fabricated a honeycomb PC-PBGF [18] Fabrications of photonic crystal fibers, Photonic crystal fiber,
for terahertz frequencies. A research team of Max Planck science[online]available:http://www.mpl.mpg.de/en/russell/researh
Institute has fabricated several PCFs of different cladding /topics/fabrication.html[Accessed: 20th August 2014]

1041-1135 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.