Temperature-controlled and multi-functional splitter based on dual-core photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

A temperature-controlled dual-core photonic crystal fiber splitter having multiple coupling characteristics is designed through infiltrating a mixture of toluene and chloroform into the twin-core holes. Multiple splitting functions are integrated in the same PCF structure with a fixed length. The incident light within the range of 1.30–1.70 μm can be divided into two polarized components in orthogonal directions. The maximum bandwidth and extinction ratio can reach 255 nm and −68 dB when the external temperature varies from 10 °C to 27 °C. Especially, the polarized light waves in one core can shift from previous y-polarization to x-polarization at certain higher temperatures or vice versa. Meanwhile, the proposed splitter can realize the wavelength splitting of 1.30 μm/1.49 μm, 1.30 μm/1.55 μm, 0.85 μm/1.55 μm and 1.49 μm/1.63 μm through manipulating the operating temperature. The PCF-based splitter has simpler structure and better performance, and has great potential applications in the field of integrated optoelectronics.