Integrated optical fiber and epsilon-near-zero material

Abstract

The present disclosure provides an optical waveguide design of a fiber modified with a thin layer of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) material. The design results in an excitation of a highly confined waveguide mode in the fiber near the wavelength where permittivity of thin layer approaches zero. Due to the high field confinement within thin layer, the ENZ mode can be characterized by a peak in modal loss of the hybrid waveguide. Results show that such in-fiber excitation of ENZ mode is due to the coupling of the guided fundamental core mode to the thin-film ENZ mode. The phase matching wavelength, where the coupling takes place, varies depending on the refractive index of the constituents. These ENZ nanostructured optical fibers have many potential applications, for example, in ENZ nonlinear and magneto-optics, as in-fiber wavelength-dependent filters, and as subwavelength fluid channel for optical and bio-photonic sensing.

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