A Novel Fabrication Method for Photonic Lanterns

Abstract

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Air-cladded mode-group selective photonic lanterns for mode-division multiplexing

“…Finally, we note that the lack of a solid cladding makes the fabricated lanterns mechanically fragile. One way to improve this, while keeping fabrication costs low, is to coat a low refractive index UV curable polymer around the tapered end [10]. The fabrication of such polymer-cladded photonic lanterns, with a focus on optimizing the coating method to bring down optical losses, could be an interesting route moving forward.…”

“…Moreover, as the number of single mode fibers increase, a larger capillary tube is needed and uniform tapering in the glass processor becomes difficult and expensive especially if a heating filament unit is used for tapering. Hence, we have suggested a fabrication technique that circumvents the use of a capillary tube [10]. In this paper, we describe our new technique and characterize the fabricated lanterns.…”

Mode-Group Selective Air-Clad Photonic Lantern

“…The loss is observed to be minimum for a taper diameter around 23 µm. Offset in the coupling between the taper and two mode fiber is a source of loss [2]. Fig 1(c) shows the simulated effect of this offset on crosstalk.…”

“…In this technique the input fibers of the lantern are stranded together, (without using a capillary tube) down-tapered, spliced to the output few mode fiber, and finally coated with a polymer with lower refractive index than the cladding of the fibers. In [2] no mode selectivity was demonstrated. Here we demonstrate a mode group selective lantern.…”

“…Photonic Lanterns (PL) is a promising mode multiplexer technology which allows simultaneous (de)multiplexing of several modes, potentially with low loss and high mode selectivity [1]. A new fabrication technique for PL has been reported [2]. In this technique the input fibers of the lantern are stranded together, (without using a capillary tube) down-tapered, spliced to the output few mode fiber, and finally coated with a polymer with lower refractive index than the cladding of the fibers.…”