Reduced microdeformation attenuation in large-mode-area photonic crystal fibers for visible applications.

We consider large-mode-area photonic crystal fibers for visible applications in which microdeformation-induced attenuation becomes a potential problem when the effective area A(eff) is sufficiently large compared to lambda2. We argue that a slight increase in fiber diameter D can be used in screening the high-frequency components of the microdeformation spectrum mechanically, and we confirm this experimentally for both 15- and 20-microm core fibers. For typical bending radii (R approximately 16 cm) the operating bandwidth increases by approximately 3-400 nm to the low-wavelength side.