SINGLE-NANOWEB SUSPENDED TWIN-CORE FIBER FOR OPTICAL SWITCHING

A novel suspended twin-core flber (STCF) based on a single-nanoweb structure for optical switching is proposed. The single-nanoweb structure of the STCF is an ultrathin glass membrane (nanoweb) suspended in air and adhered to the inner ring of a glass flber capillary, which substantially provides a built-in transducing mechanism to boost the pressure-induced index change in the flber core region of the STCF. Two flber cores locate symmetrically in the center of the nanoweb, resulting to the mode coupling for the guiding light in the STCF. Optical and mechanical properties of the proposed STCFs under difierent force are numerically investigated. Optical switching based on the STCF is achieved by controlling the force applied to the STCF. Our simulations show that optical switching from one core to the other in the STCF is realized based on a low switching force of only 8N. The performances of the optical switching based on STCFs with difierent structure parameters are presented.