Bending loss and thermo-optic effect of a hybrid PDMS/silica photonic crystal fiber.

In this paper, we demonstrate and report a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) infiltrated with PDMS elastomer which is sensitive to external bending and temperature perturbations. Numerical simulations and experimental measurements were carried out to investigate the fundamental TIR-based guiding mechanism of the hybrid PDMS/silica PCF in terms of effective index, effective modal area and loss. Wavelength dependence of bending losses was also measured for different bend diameters as well as the temperature dependence of the fundamental guiding mode for a range of temperatures from 20°C to 75°C. Experimental measurements have shown a ~6% power recovery of the bend-induced loss for a 6-cm long PDMS-filled PCF at 4 cm bend diameter.