Designing and exploiting the properties of gas filled hollow core optical fibers

Hollow core optical fibers can efficiently guide light in air, within an extended wavelength range. Their adoption as a passive means for optical transmission is of particular interest for short and long-haul optical communications. However, also filling them with gases of various chemical compositions reveal to be advantageous for several applications. Firstly, this can be exploited for building novel gas-based fiber laser sources in spectral domains, or with properties, inaccessible by using conventional optical fibers. Secondly, the presence of even extremely low hazardous gas concentrations within the central core of these hollow fibers can be detected. This can be exploited by building compact hollow core fiber-based sensor devices, by using various forms of optical detection techniques. Finally, gas-based hollow core fibers could be also exploited in the field of quantum information.