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Ultra-low transmission loss (7.7 dB/km at 750 nm) inhibited-coupling guiding hollow-core photonic crystal fibers with a single ring of tubular lattice cladding

The advent of photonic bandgap (PBG) guiding hollow- core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) sparked the hope of guiding light with attenuation below the fundamental silica Rayleigh scattering limit (SRSL) of conventional step-index fibers. Unfortunately, the combination of the strong core-cladding optical-overlap, the surface roughness at the silica cladding struts and the presence of interface-modes limited the lowest reported transmission-loss to 1.2 dB/km at 1550 nm. This hope is recently revived by the introduction of hypocycloid core- contour (i.e. negative curvature) in inhibited-coupling (IC) guiding HC-PCF, and the reduction of their confinement loss to a level that makes them serious contenders for light transmission below the SRSL in UV- VIS-NIR spectral range. Here, we report on several IC guiding HC-PCFs with a hypocycloid core-contour and a cladding structure made of a single ring from a tubular lattice. The fibers guide in the UV-VIS and NIR, and among which we list one with a record transmission loss of 7.7 dB/km at ~750 nm (only a factor ~2 above the SRSL), and a second with an ultra-broad fundamental-band with loss in the range of 10-20 dB/km spanning from 600 to 1200 nm. Both fibers present near-single mode guidance and very low bend loss sensitivity. The results show that the limit in the transmission is set by confinement loss for wavelengths longer than ~1 μm and by surface- roughness for shorter wavelengths, thus indicating that transmission loss well below the SRSL in the visible is possible with a surface roughness reduction and would open the possibility of the first UV low-loss light- guidance.