A Slot Micro/Nano Fiber With Elliptical Low-Index Core

A slot micro/nano optical fiber with elliptical low-index core, referred to as the elliptical-slot micro/nano fiber (ESMNF), is studied systematically in great detail in this paper. It is demonstrated that the ESMNF can confine most of the light in the low-index region and hence lead to large field enhancement. Benefiting from the large low-index power confinement factor and the field enhancement, the ESMNF also yields significant nonlinearity enhancement by the proper selection of materials. In addition, large birefringence between the two fundamental polarized modes is observed, due to the breakage of the circular symmetry for the core. The nonlinearity and low-index confinement properties of a more practical elliptical-slot embedded suspended microstructure fiber are also studied.