Effects of Air Holes in the Cladding of Photonic Crystal Fibers on Dispersion and Confinement Loss of Orbital Angular Momentum Modes

Abstract In the development of orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode division multiplexing (MDM), the capacity of optical fiber communication must be improved. However, owing to dispersion and confinement loss, many OAM modes do not propagate stably over a long distance in optical fibers. In this work, the effects of the size, number, shape, number of layers, and layer spacing of air holes in the cladding of the fiber on the dispersion and confinement loss are analyzed based on a simple structure. The trends are studied and summarized to facilitate the design of optical fibers to achieve stable transmission of OAM modes over a long distance.