Ultra-broadband small-size dual-core photonic crystal fiber polarization splitter based on silver coating

We have proposed a novel silver-coated ultra-broadband small-size dual-core photonic crystal fiber (DC-PCF) polarization splitter which achieves a short length, high extinction ratio (ER) and ultra-wide bandwidth at the commonly used communication wavelength band. Finite element method-based numerical simulation is applied to carry out a thorough investigation for wavelength from 1 to 2 μm. According to the simulation results, the coupling qualities of the proposed structure can be improved by resonant coupling between the core guide mode and the surface plasmon polarization (SPP) exciton mode. By analyzing the change of ER with varying wavelength, the ER value of this work are achieved as 67.4 and 67.1 dB when the wavelength are 1.14 and 1.57 μm, respectively. The final splitting length (LS) is 17.17 μm. To the best of our knowledge, it is difficult to achieve in all previous studies. With a splitting bandwidth of 900 nm (1.0–1.9 μm) and the ER value of −50.1 dB at 1.55 μm, the E + S + C + L + U communication bands are completely covered. The proposed model has excellent beam-splitting performance, such as ultra-short LS, ultra-wide splitting bandwidth and good tolerance performance, with potential applications in optical fiber communications or fiber laser devices. •In this paper, a theoretical simulation study of optical fibers is carried out using the finite element method.•The plasma effect is introduced in favour of a better enhancement of the relevant parameters of the designed structure.•The results of the theoretical simulation study indicate that the coupling length of the designed device is only 17.17 μm, but substantially improves the operating bandwidth to 900 nm(1.0–1.9 μm), completely covering the E + S + C + L + U communication bands.•Our research has drastically reduced the length of the device while substantially enlarging the bandwidth, which has been difficult to achieve in previous studies.