Temperature dependence of birefringence in polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fibres

In this paper, the temperature dependence of birefringence in polarization maintaining photonic crystal fibres (PM-PCFs) is investigated theoretically and experimentally. Utilizing the structural parameters of the PM-PCF samples in the experiment, two effects leading to the birefringence variation under different temperatures are analysed, which are the thermal expansion of silica material and the refractive index variation due to the temperature variation. The actual birefringence variation of the PM-PCF is the combination of the two effects, which is in the order of 10−9 K−1 for both fibre samples. Calculation results also show that the influence of refractive index variation is the dominant contribution, which determines the tendency of the fibre birefringence variation with varying temperature. Then, the birefringence beat lengths of the two fibre samples are measured under the temperature, which varies from −40 °C to 80 °C. A traditional PANDA-type polarization maintaining fibre (PMF) is also measured in the same way for comparison. The experimental results indicate that the birefringence variation of the PM-PCF due to temperature variation is far smaller than that of the traditional PMF, which agrees with the theoretical analysis. The ultra-low temperature dependence of the birefringence in the PM-PCF has great potential applications in temperature-insensitive fibre interferometers, fibre sensors, and fibre gyroscopes. (interdisciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)