Ultralow thermal sensitivity of phase and propagation delay in hollow core optical fibres

Propagation time through an optical fibre changes with the environment, e.g., a change in temperature alters the fibre length and its refractive index. These changes have negligible impact in many key fibre applications, e.g., telecommunications, however, they can be detrimental in many others. Exam...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2015-10, Vol.5 (1), p.15447-15447, Article 15447
Main Authors: Slavík, Radan, Marra, Giuseppe, Fokoua, Eric Numkam, Baddela, Naveen, Wheeler, Natalie V., Petrovich, Marco, Poletti, Francesco, Richardson, David J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/1075/187
639/624/1111/1116
Humanities and Social Sciences
Interferometry
multidisciplinary
Propagation
Science
Temperature effects
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Summary:Propagation time through an optical fibre changes with the environment, e.g., a change in temperature alters the fibre length and its refractive index. These changes have negligible impact in many key fibre applications, e.g., telecommunications, however, they can be detrimental in many others. Examples are fibre-based interferometry (e.g., for precise measurement and sensing) and fibre-based transfer and distribution of accurate time and frequency. Here we show through two independent experiments that hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres have a significantly smaller sensitivity to temperature variations than traditional solid-core fibres. The 18 times improvement observed, over 3 times larger than previously reported, makes them the most environmentally insensitive fibre technology available and a promising candidate for many next-generation fibre systems applications that are sensitive to drifts in optical phase or absolute propagation delay.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep15447