In-line hollow-core fiber-optic bandpass filter

Abstract

We present an antiresonant hollow-core fiber-based bandpass optical filter. The device is realized by tapering down a section of tubular hollow-core fiber to a ratio of less than 0.5. Sweeping of the tube wall thickness-induced resonant bands in the down- and up-transition sections of the taper suppresses the blue side of the spectrum, while the red side filtering exploits the increased confinement loss at the taper waist that depends sharply on the wavelength-to-core-diameter ratio. These working principles of the filter make it possible to customize the location and width of the passband by tailoring the fiber design and taper profile. We achieve a 350-nm-wide bandpass filter with the minimum insertion loss of 1.3 dB in the passband and up to 40 dB suppression in the lossbands. We anticipate the filter to become one of the essential components in all-hollow-core fiberized optical systems.