Segmented hollow core photonic crystal fiber as a gas cell

Abstract

Developing a unique gas cell based on hollow core photonic crystal fiber (HC- PCF) improving its ability to be used in measurements which require higher temporal resolution. Traditional HC-PCF is an excellent candidate for a gas cell due to its extremely small filling volume combined with its small footprint, however a detriment it suffers from is an extraordinarily long fill and evacuation time, a matter of hours for cells surpassing 10 m. The HC-PCF in this work was segmented into smaller lengths, with each segment allowing gas to enter and exit the fiber. By stringing multiple segments of HC-PCF together one can increase to overall length of the gas cell, thus lowering the detection limit of the system, without increasing the fill and evacuation time required to saturate the HC-PCF with gas. By segmenting HC-PCF the fill time can be reduced to a matter of minutes, which makes it an attractive candidate for use in a remote monitoring setting due to the fact that it can operate in the telecommunications band, reducing the cost of implementing such a system, as well as operating at room temperature, removing the need to power an active cooling system.