Bandgap tuning through material anisotropy as a novel physical mechanism for liquid crystal filled photonic crystal fiber sensors

Bandgap guidance in photonic crystal fibers (PCF) is strongly selective spectrally and in this sense resembles guidance in fibers with Bragg gratings. The photonic band-edge shifts when the optical properties of the material in the fiber are affected by external factors such as strain, temperature, pressure, static fields, chemical vapour penetration etc. This analogy allows for the development of optical sensors with similar principle of operation as fibers with Bragg gratings, however with novel sensing characteristics. Here we study theoretically PCF filled with LC when material anisotropy plays a strong role in the creation of the bandgap.