Enhanced nonlinear effects in photonic crystal fibers

Photonic crystal fibers are a new class of single-material optical fibers with wavelength-scale air holes running down the entire fiber length. Photonic crystal fibers were first developed in 1996 and have subsequently been the focus of increasing scientific and technological interest in the field of fiber optics. The manufacturing, principles, basic properties, and some applications of photonic crystal fibers are briefly described in this paper. A review of our recent work on the nonlinear effects in photonic crystal fibers is presented, and special emphasis is placed on such effects as supercontinuum generation, frequency conversion, and solitons observed when femtosecond light pulses propagate in these fibers.