Wide bandwidth, low loss photonic bandgap fibers

A method of manufacturing a polarization maintaining PBGF, comprising:

• forming a cane comprising a lattice of cladding regions having four-fold symmetry, a core, and a having substantially circular outer diameter, said canes comprising an optical material;
• forming a circular preform using said cane;
• modifying said circular preform to form a non-circular shape;
• drawing said preform into a fiber;
• and
• transforming said four-fold symmetry of said lattice into two-fold symmetry by deforming said core and said cladding during said drawing thereby introducing birefringence into said fiber.

A photonic bandgap fiber (PBGF) for propagating light having a wavelength, λ, said fiber comprising:

• a core;
• and
• a cladding region disposed about said core,
• wherein said cladding region comprises a plurality of features, said features having a periodicity, Λ, and is configured such that the cladding region at least partially surrounds a hole having a hole dimension, D,
• wherein said plurality of features are arranged as a rectangular lattice,
• wherein said cladding region comprises webs and nodes of said lattice such that said webs have a width, d2, and are configured as higher aspect ratio cladding material portions,
• wherein the webs are connected to said nodes, said nodes having a dimension, d1, and configured as lower aspect ratio cladding material portions, and
• wherein D/Λ is in a range from about 0.9 to about 0.995 and said PBGF is configured such that a relative wavelength transmission window Δλ/λc is larger than about 0.35.