Lotus-Shaped Negative Curvature Hollow Core Fiber With 10.5 dB/km at 1550 nm Wavelength

We present a novel lotus-shaped negative curvature antiresonant hollow core fiber with the potential for low loss and very wide bandwidth. A minimum loss of ~10 dB/km at 1550 nm and less than 100 dB/km over a bandwidth of ~650 nm is demonstrated, with effectively single mode behavior over lengths of a few tens of meters. We demonstrate power penalty free 10.5-Gb/s data transmission through an 86 m length of fiber at both O and C telecom bands. The fiber macrobend sensitivity has also been tested, which is relevant for telecom as well as for other applications including beam delivery and gas-based sensing. The bend loss is found to be below 0.2 dB/m for bend radii down to 8 cm at wavelengths away from the short wavelength edge of the transmission band.