Study of polarization-dependent bandgap formation in liquid crystal filled photonic crystal fibers

The mechanism of polarization-dependent bandgap formation for nematic liquid crystal filled photonic crystal fibers (LCPCFs) is presented. The total polarization- independent bandgap map is not applicable for describing the mode guiding in LCPCF. We propose the formation of two orthogonal polarization-dependent bandgap maps to describe the mode guiding behavior. The formation of polarization-dependent bandgap caused by the high index difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary dielectric indexes of liquid crystal offers single-mode single-polarization or ultrahigh birefringence guiding for LCPCFs.