Holey optical fibres: Fundamental properties and device applications

The presence of wavelength-scale holes in the transverse profile of a holey fibre can lead to novel optical properties that cannot be achieved in more conventional forms of optical fibre. Examples of such properties include broadband single-mode guidance, the extremes of fibre nonlinearity, from fibres providing tight mode confinement to those offering large mode areas, and a range of remarkable dispersive properties, including broadband flattened dispersion, anomalous dispersion below 1.3 μm, and large normal dispersion values at 1.55 μm. Fundamentals and recent progress are reviewed, ranging from design and fabrication through to applications and devices based on this emerging fibre type.