Progress in Specialty Optical Fibers and Future Prospects

Dear Colleagues,

Specialty optical fibers are an established and versatile platform with a multitude of applications across telecommunications, astronomical instrumentation, healthcare, and high-power applications. Fabrication capabilities and improvements have been instrumental in propelling the progress of specialty optical fibers, enabling them to exhibit intricate geometries and complex refractive index profiles inspired by a deeper theoretical understanding.

This innovation has led to the fabrication of novel hollow-core fibers with intricate geometries that, in turn, have resulted in exceptional attenuation properties and inherent features such as mode-filtering and polarization control. It has also led to the creation of complex-refractive-index fibers for high-power transmission and multicore fibers tailored for exoplanet detection, among other noteworthy breakthroughs. The ongoing exploration and research into these fibers hold substantial promise for fueling future advancements in these fields.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide a platform for sharing the significant progress made in specialty optical fibers and to address the future challenges within these domains. We believe that this Special Issue will deliver a comprehensive and current overview of state-of-the-art specialty optical fibers, fostering a deeper understanding of their potential applications and their role in shaping the future of these disciplines.

Dr. Stephanos Yerolatsitis
Dr. Kerrianne Harrington
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• hollow-core fibers
• multicore fibers
• specialty optical fibers
• complex refractive index profiles
• microstructured fibers
• non-uniform optical fibers