Prediction of cross-talk is an important facet of multicore fiber (MCF) design. Several approaches for estimating cross-talk in MCF have been proposed but none are faultless, especially when applied to MCF with heterogeneous cores. We propose a new calculation approach that attempts to solve this problem. In our approach, cross-talk in multicore fibers is estimated by coupled power theory. The coefficients in the coupled power equation are theoretically calculated by the central limit theorem and by quantum mechanical time-dependent perturbations. The results from our calculations agree with those of Monte Carlo simulations of heterogeneous MCFs.

This paper describes recent developments of photonic crystal fibers (PCFs), which can realize ultra wide-band transmission or large Aeff, as well as photonic crystal multi-core fibers (PC-MCFs), which have large potentials as future high-capacity transmission lines using Space Division Multiplexing.