Experimental investigation on the bending loss properties of photonic crystal fibers

The loss properties of photonic crystal fibers were analyzed, and bending loss measurements for two different kinds of PCF are presented. The bending losses of the photonic band gap-PCF with a conventional single-mode fiber (SMF-28), and the total internal reflection-PCF with a conventional multi-mode fiber in different bending radii were experimentally compared. The results show that both kinds of PCF are found to be highly insensitive to bending, especially when the bending radius is over the critical bending radius, and the transmission loss is increased as the bending radius is decreased. In addition, the effect of structure parameters on bending loss properties is analyzed. The PCF having a large percentage of d/A is proved to be more resistant to bending loss in transmission.