Tapered photonic crystal fibers

E. C. Mägi, P. Steinvurzel, and B.J. Eggleton

Centre for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS)
School of Physics A28, University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia
tel: +61 2 9351 3604 fax: +61 2 9351 7726
egg@physics.usyd.edu.au

Abstract: We demonstrate the tapering of a photonic crystal fiber to

achieve a microstructure pitch of less than 300 nm. We probe the tapered
fiber in the transverse geometry to demonstrate the scaling of the photonic
bandgaps associated with the microstructure. We show that the
fundamental gap can be shifted down to the communications wavelengths,
or even further to the visible spectrum. Our optical measurements are
correlated with band structure calculations.
 2004 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (050.1950) Diffraction gratings; (060.2310) Fiber optics

References and links

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(Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995).
2. P. S. J. Russell, “Photonic crystal fibers,” Science 299, 358-362 (2003).
3. T. A Birks, J. C. Knight, and P. S. J. Russell, “Endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fiber,” Opt. Lett. 22,
961-963 (1997).
4. C. M. Smith, N. Venkataraman, M. T. Gallagher, D. Muller, J. A. West, N. F. Borelli, D. C. Allan, and K.
W. Koch, “Low-loss hollow-core silica/air photonic bandgap fiber,” Nature 424, 657-659 (2003).
5. J. K. Ranka, R. S. Windeler and A. J. Stentz, “Visible continuum generation in air-silica microstructure
optical fibers with anomalous dispersion at 800 nm,“ Opt. Lett. 25, 25- 27 (2000).
6. H. C. Nguyen, P. Domachuk, M. Sumetsky, M. J. Steel, M. Straub, M. Gu, and B. J. Eggleton “Lateral
thinking with photonic crystal fibers,” presented postdeadline at 16th Annual Meeting of IEEE Lasers and
Electro-Optics Society, Tucson, AZ, USA, 26-30 Oct. 2003.
7. BandSOLVE™ 1.3 (RSoft Design Group, Inc., Ossining, NY) 2003.
8. J. K. Chandalia, B. J. Eggleton, R. S. Windeler, S. G. Kosinski, X. Liu and C. Xu, “Adiabatic coupling in
tapered air-silica microstructured optical fiber,” IEEE Photonic Technol. Lett. 13, 52-54 (2001).
9. S.T. Huntington, J. Katsifolis, B.C. Gibson, J. Canning, K. Lyytikainen, J. Zagari, L.W. Cahill and J.D.
Love, “Retaining and characterizing nano-structure within tapered air-silica structured optical fibers,” Opt.
Express 11, 98-104 (2003).
http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?URI=OPEX-11-2-98
10. R. P. Kenny, T. A. Birks, and K. P. Oakley, “Control of optical fiber taper shape,” Electron. Lett. 27,
1654-1656 (1991).
11. T. A. Birks, and Y. W. Li, “The shape of fiber tapers,” J. Lightwave Technol. 10, 432-438 (1992).
12. FullWAVE™ 3.0.4 (RSoft Design Group, Inc., Ossining, NY) 2003.

1. Introduction
Photonic bandgap (PBG) materials have properties that make them useful for next generation
photonic device applications. Wavelengths that lie within the bandgap are forbidden from
propagating through the material, lending PBG structures naturally to the applications in
filtering and confinement [1]. For example, in 2-D photonic crystals (PCs), PBG materials
typically comprised of a slab dielectric with a regular pattern of holes etched in it, a line of
defects in the pattern can form a planar waveguide. Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) are optical
fibers with a regular pattern of holes that run parallel to the fiber axis such that the cross-
section comprises a PBG structure which can radially confine light [2]. The fiber cross-section

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can be designed to achieve different guiding mechanisms and to exploit various physical
phenomena such as single mode operation over an extended wavelength range [3], hollow-
core guidance [4] and non-linear effects such as super-continuum generation [5].
Conventionally, light propagates parallel to the holes in these fibers and is guided either
by the interface between a high index core and low effective index microstructure, or by the
stop bands of the PBG structure. However, one may also use these fibers in a transverse
geometry, where the light propagates normal to the holes, similar to 2-D PC slabs. We
recently demonstrated [6] that in this geometry we can directly measure the stop bands
associated with microstructure of an index-guiding PCF. In the experiments, we found a
fundamental partial gap at ~3.0 µm and a higher order gap at ~1.5 µm. This work has
potentially important applications in microphotonics using existing PCF manufacturing
technology, or in improving that technology by providing feedback during the fiber draw
process.
In this paper we extend this novel application of PCF by tapering the fiber to reduce the
pitch (Λ) of the PC microstructure, thus shifting the fundamental partial bandgap to shorter
wavelengths. We have achieved reductions in the diameter of PCF by a factor of five whilst
still retaining the PC structure. Using this post-processing technique, we fabricated PC
structures with Λ < 0.3 µm, which to our knowledge have not been demonstrated in a PCF
before; this corresponds to a shift in the fundamental gap down to visible wavelengths. We
experimentally probe the PCF taper in the transverse geometry and correlate our
measurements with numerical simulations.
2. Basic principle
A schematic of this transverse probing is shown in fig. 1. An SEM image of the cross-section
of the tapered fiber is shown in the inset, with the crystallographic symmetry axes as
indicated. The untapered PCF microstructure is comprised of 10 rings of air holes, 0.9 µm in

Tapered
PCF
SMF SMF

K
Γ M
10µm

Fig. 1. Schematic of a tapered PCF probed in a transverse direction to the axis of the taper.
Inset shows SEM image of cleaved tapered PCF, with local outer diameter of 37.5µm and pitch
< 0.5 µm

diameter, forming a triagonal lattice with a 1.28 µm pitch, and a single missing air hole
forming a central defect; the fiber was supplied by Crystal Fibre A/S. Figure 2 shows the
calculated band diagram [7] associated with the untapered PCF microstructure. Here we

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define the TE direction to be parallel to the fiber axis. When light is launched across the fiber
as in Fig. 1, we expect that wavelengths which lie outside the bandgaps will propagate to the
other side and wavelengths within the gaps will not; there will also be some scattering
associated with edges of the microstructure. In our experiments, described in detail below,
light is launched from a broadband source and the transmitted signal is measured on an optical
1.2
1.1
Normalised frequency (ωΛ/2πc=Λ/λ)

1.0 TE
0.9
0.8 TM
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Γ M K Γ
Fig. 2. Band diagram for triagonal lattice of air holes in silica with Λ = 1.28 µm and hole
diameter = 0. 9 mm. Crosshatched regions indicate partial bandgaps along symmetry axes.

spectrum analyzer (OSA), where the bandgaps appear as a loss notch in the transmission
spectrum. There is no complete bandgap in this system, only partial gaps along the symmetry
axes of the structure, so it is necessary to probe the fiber along one of these axes; in this work
we only consider the partial gaps in the Γ-M direction (see Fig. 1). If we presume that the
fiber cross-section is preserved by the tapering process, then the band structure shown should
apply for all points along the taper. Experimentally, we expect that the wavelength of the
notch in the transmission spectrum measurements should shift as we probe different points of
the taper.
3. PCF taper
Chandalia et al. [8] and Huntington et al. [9] have previously reported tapering holey fibers by
factors of 18:1 and 8:1, respectively, whilst retaining the cross-sectional geometry within the
taper region; of course, PCFs are manufactured by drawing preforms down by factors of
100:1-1000:1. Chandalia et al. considered a fiber with a microstructure comprising only six
very large (~20µm) air holes; Huntington et al. achieved Λ of 1.1µm, though they considered
a structure with a relatively large initial air hole diameter (3.3 µm) and Λ (9 µm). This work
presents the first demonstration to our knowledge of a tapered holey fiber with Λ < 300 nm.
The PCF tapers were produced on a taper rig using the flame brushing technique [10, 11].
The PCF was mounted on either end in a fiber chuck, each of which in turn was mounted on a
motorized stage. The fiber was heated in the center by a narrow butane flame, also mounted
on a motorized stage, which moved back and forth along the fiber axis as the taper was pulled

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 26.8 µm 12.8 µm

(a) (b)
Fig. 3. (a) SEM micrograph of untapered fiber (OD = 108 µm, Λ = 1.28 µm) and (b) tapered
fiber: OD = 47.1 ± 0.6 µm, Λ ~ 0.56 µm

by the fiber chuck stages. The motion of all three stages was controlled by an integrated
computer interface. The cross-sectional dimensions of the tapers were found to be sensitive to
the taper pull parameters such as the flame travel distance and fiber elongation rate. We
found that the holes would collapse if the elongation rate was too slow or if the final fiber
diameter was too small. The onset of collapse could be delayed by maintaining sufficient gas
pressure within the holes, which we achieved by sealing the ends of the PCF.
Figure 3 shows SEM micrographs of the untapered fiber and of a taper with a local OD of
47.1 µm, respectively. One notes that the air/glass fraction and the quality of the hole
geometry are essentially unchanged (the apparent shearing in Fig. 3(b) is due to the cleave).
From the band structure in fig. 1, one expects that the tapered structure in Fig. 3(b) should
have a fundamental Γ-M gap centered at ~1200 nm, demonstrating that one can draw tapers to
have fundamental stop bands past the 1550 nm and 1300 nm communications bands without
significant distortions of the microstructure.
We produced even smaller tapers to shift the fundamental partial gap to visible
wavelengths. In general, we found that for OD < ~40 µm, the holes begin to collapse relative
to the pitch. This is shown in Figs. 4(a)-(c), where the ratio of hole diameter to pitch is very
obviously reduced. Even so, these tapers still exhibit stop bands. Figure 5 is a color image
obtained from an optical microscope in which the PCF taper has been illuminated by white
light from the front. Bragg diffracted visible light can be clearly seen reflecting from the PCF
taper with the reflected color varying monotonically along its length. The taper dimensions at
either end of the visible spectrum roughly correspond to the dimensions for Figs. 4(a) and
4(b); the diameter of taper corresponding to the yellow/green area is ~24µm, corresponding to
Λ ~ 250 nm.

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 (a) (b)

(c)
Fig. 4. SEM micrographs of cleaved tapered fiber ends (a) OD = 26.4 ± 0.6µm, Λ ~ 290 nm,
(b) 21.3 ± 0.3µm, Λ ~ 217nm, and (c) OD = 17.3 ± 0.3µm, Λ ~ 170nm

Fig. 5. Optical microscope image of tapered PCF illuminated by white light from the front;
taper OD at the center is ~24 µm. The color of the first order Bragg reflected light varies
monotonically to shorter wavelengths as the taper dimensions are reduced.

4. Transverse probing experiment

Figure 6 shows a schematic of the transverse probing experiment. Light is launched from the
unpolarized white light source to a cleaved end of single mode fiber (SMF-28), where it then

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 CCD
Optical
Camera
Broad Band source Spectrum
Analyzer

3 axis
stages 10x Microscope objective

SMF-28 Source fiber SMF-28 receiver fiber

Tapered 3 axis
PC fiber stages

Lateral translation direction used

tune the wavelength of the transmission
notch

Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of transverse probing experiment

propagates transversely through the PCF taper to another cleaved end of SMF-28 and is
guided to the OSA. The PCF taper is held in a rotation chuck in order to adjust the orientation
of the microstructure. The taper is cleaved at the waist and the end is imaged through a 10X
objective lens to a CCD camera so that the orientation can be verified; an image from the
camera is shown in Fig. 7(a). For the sample used in this experiment, the taper was pulled at a
rate of 5 mm/min down to a minimum waist diameter of ~43 µm, where the waist was 5 mm

-2

-4

-6

-8
Transmission (dB)

-10 experimental data

-12
TE gap
-14

-16 TM gap
-18

-20

-22

-24
600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700
wavelength (nm)
(a) (b)

Fig. 7. (a) Image of tapered fiber in experimental setup with PC microstructure oriented along
Γ-M axis relative to optical axis. (b) Representative measured transmission spectrum for local
taper OD = 46.7 ± 0.5 µm, with predicted TE and TM gaps superimposed.

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in length. The local taper OD is a slowly varying function of the fiber axis (< 25 µm/mm),
ensuring that the local OD and hence the local pitch are effectively constant over the width of
the probe beam. For local taper OD < 59 µm, the separation between the two pieces of SMF-
28 is 63 µm; for larger OD, the separation is increased to 69 µm. All of the fibers are
mounted on 3 axis microblock stages to control the alignment. Optical spectra are taken at
different points along the taper, where the taper is translated towards the camera to change the
center wavelength of the stop band; a representative spectrum and the corresponding gaps
calculated by assuming linear scaling of Λ with OD are shown in Fig. 7(b).
Figure 8 shows the measured transmission spectra where taper OD varies from 63.9 to
43.2 µm (all experimental measures of local OD given are ±0.5 µm). This corresponds to a

0.0
-2.5
-5.0
-7.5
-10.0
Transmission (dB)

-12.5
-15.0
-17.5
-20.0
-22.5
-25.0
Local taper OD
63.9 µm 50.2 µm
-27.5
59.2 µm 45.8 µm
-30.0
57.1 µm 43.2 µm
-32.5 53.3 µm noise floor
-35.0

600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700
wavelength (nm)
Fig. 8. Measured transmission spectra in tapered PCF transverse probing experiment.

change in Λ of ~770 – 530 nm, and manifests in a shift of the fundamental gap from 1670 nm
to 1100 nm. The transmission is normalized against the transmitted spectrum with the input
and output SMF butted up against each other. The background insertion loss is quite low,
varying from ~2.5-5.0 dB. Relative to the background loss, the notch is ~21 dB deep, though
it weakens with decreasing OD to 16 dB for OD < 45 µm. We expect this occurs because at
these dimensions the probe beam is comparable in size to the PC microstructure; this can be
verified with finite difference-time domain (FDTD) calculations and will be the subject of
future work. The large size of the probe beam relative to the microstructure is also the reason
why there is no apparent narrow band resonance in the transmission spectra due to the central
core defect. If one considers this structure to be analogous to a 1-D fiber grating, a single
missing hole would correspond to a phase shift of ~0.3π, which would manifest as a narrow
transmission spike on the short wavelength side of the stop band. However, in our
measurements, the probe beam has a width of ~10 µm, whereas the hole diameter varies from
533 nm down to 360 nm over the length of the taper, so one expects the effect of a single
missing hole to be negligible. This was also borne out by spectra obtained from 2-D FDTD
calculations [12] for a pulsed excitation, where the local taper OD was taken to be 61.5 µm.
We found that the spectrum corresponding to the structure with a defect actually had a slightly
smoothed amplitude ripple compared to no-defect case, particularly on the short wavelength
side of the transmission notch. However, if one makes the defect larger by removing holes on

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either side of the core (creating a line defect transverse to the propagation direction), one does
see a phase shift in the output spectrum. Also, it is interesting to note that the transmission of

(a) (b)

Fig. 9. (572 KB each) 2-D FDTD simulations corresponding to experiment with OD = 43.2 µm
and CW excitation for (a) 1100 nm (inside stop band) and (b) 1300 nm (outside stop band).

wavelengths in the bandgap is measurably suppressed even where the microstructure ~ 10 µm

wide. This is shown in the animations in Fig. 9, calculated using 2-D FDTD using the
experimental parameters for OD = 43.2 µm, though we assume uniform Λ and hole size,
unlike the actual structure shown in the SEMs above. In both animations, the probe light is a
monochromatic CW input; Fig. 9(a) corresponds to λ = 1100 nm, in the stop band, and Fig
9(b)
1700

1600

1500
Wavelength (nm)

1400

1300

1200

1100 experiment
TE gap
1000
TM gap

900
40 45 50 55 60 65 70
Local taper OD (µm)

Fig. 10. Fundamental partial gap along the Γ-M axis plotted as a function of local taper OD.
Square points indicate experimentally measured wavelength at the minimum of the
transmission notch and bars indicate FWHM of the notch.

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corresponds to λ = 1300 nm, which transmits. Returning to Fig. 8, note that for the larger OD
spectra, we also see the secondary gap predicted in Fig. 2, though the detector response of the
OSA is insufficient at short wavelengths to give an accurate measurement of this gap.
Figure 10 plots the center wavelength of the transmission notch as function of OD; the
bars indicate the FWHM of the notch. The data superimposed on the fundamental gap, and
we see very good correlation between a) the center of the gap and the measured center
wavelength and b) the gap edges and the measured FWHM, verifying the validity of the 2-D
band structure picture to explain the physics of this geometry. In particular, the experiments
verify our observation in the SEMs that Λ/OD is conserved and that there is little distortion of
the PC microstructure due to the tapering process.
5. Conclusion
We have demonstrated the feasibility of reducing the pitch of a PCF to submicron dimensions.
We have achieved up to a five times reduction in the taper diameter as compared with original
fiber diameter whilst retaining the PC structure. First order Bragg reflection was observed in
the visible spectrum from the PCF taper. We have also experimentally probed this taper
transversely as a function of OD and showed that wavelengths in the fundamental gap are
suppressed in transmission by > 20 dB, and that both the wavelengths and FWHM of
measured gaps coincide with theory.
Acknowledgments
This work was produced with the assistance of the Australian Research Council (ARC) under
the ARC Centres of Excellence Program. CUDOS (the Centre for Ultra-high bandwidth
Devices for Optical Systems) is an ARC Centre of Excellence.

#3755 - $15.00 US Received 2 February 2004; revised 19 February 2004; accepted 19 February 2004
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