New age fibers: the children of the photonic revolution

The Photonics Crystal Fibers (PCFs) also know as “holey” or “micro-structured” fibers herald a new age for optical fibers. The astronomical applications could revolutionize instrument design through: broadband performance combined with excellent UV transmission, extremely large numerical aperture fibers, and aperture transforming fibers improving input coupling/sampling while maintaining a good match between the fiber outputs and the detector pixels. The Photonic Crystal effects can provide unprecedented non-linear effects in materials and when combined with micro-photonics it is expected that a photonic chip will be realized in which optical switching, wavelength dispersion and even wavelength conversion could take place. However, conventional optical fibers are currently the benchmark for many astronomical applications and improvements in the performance of silica fibers are also being made. In this paper we present a brief review of the current status of photonic crystal fibers with particular focus on the astronomical applications. In addition we present the optical characterization of a new silica/silica broadband fiber that delivers very good transmission from 300nm to 1100nm and beyond.