Macro-bending loss estimation for air-guiding photonic crystal fibres

Optical fibres operating by the photonic bandgap effect offers an alternative approach to evanescent field waveguides for opticai sensing applications. In addition to this, these photonic crystal fibres provide completely new waveguiding properties, which include different macro-bending loss performance compared to standard optical fibres. A first estimation of these new properties is demonstrated for air-guiding fibre designs by combining accurate vectorial mode analysis and an adaptation of more traditional macro-bending loss theory.