Toward practical holey fiber technology:?fabrication, splicing, modeling, and characterization

We report the fabrication of long lengths of mechanically robust holey fiber and what is believed to be the first demonstration of their splicing. These practical advances have permitted what is to our knowledge the first detailed characterization of a holey fiber near $1.5 \mathit{\mu }\mathrm{m}$. We compare dispersion measurements with our numerical predictions and confirm that our model can be used to predict accurately holey fiber properties.