Advances in holey fibers

The combination of wavelength-scale features and design flexibility offered by holey fibers leads to a significantly broader range of optical properties than is possible in conventional optical fibers. Of particular interest, holey fibers offer the combination of broadband single mode guidance and large mode areas, and such fibers are promising for high power delivery applications such as including laser welding and machining, and for fiber lasers and amplifiers. Holey fiber technology has now reached the point that km- lengths of polymer-coated fiber with less than 1dB/km loss at 1550nm are possible. As well as being of fundamental scientific interest, the novel guidance properties of holey fibers can be exploited to develop technologically important devices. Here recent advances in holey fibers will be presented, with a particular focus on recent results in developing holey fiber-based lasers