Few-mode fiber, splice and SDM component characterization by spatially-diverse optical vector network analysis

Abstract

Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers) Please check the document version of this publication:• A submitted manuscript is the author's version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website.• The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review.• The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication Citation for published version (APA):Rommel, S., Delgado Mendinueta, J. M., Klaus, W., Sakaguchi, J., Vegas Olmos, J. J., Awaji, Y., ... Wada, N. (2017). Few-mode fiber, splice and SDM component characterization by spatially-diverse optical vector network analysis. Optics Express, 25(19), 22347-22361. DOI: 10.1364/OE.25.022347 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Abstract: This paper discusses spatially diverse optical vector network analysis for space division multiplexing (SDM) component and system characterization, which is becoming essential as SDM is widely considered to increase the capacity of optical communication systems. Characterization of a 108-channel photonic lantern spatial multiplexer, coupled to a 36-core 3-mode fiber, is experimentally demonstrated, extracting the full impulse response and complex transfer function matrices as well as insertion loss (IL) and mode-dependent loss (MDL) data. Moreover, the mode-mixing behavior of fiber splices in the few-mode multi-core fiber and their impact on system IL and MDL are analyzed, finding splices to cause significant mode-mixing and to be non-negligible in system capacity analysis.

Network slicing architecture for SDM and analog-radio-over-fiber-based 5G fronthaul networks

“…Few-and multi-mode fibres typically encounter significant mode-mixing and thus require multiple-input multiple-output signal processing to separate the signals. Instead, the use of multi-core fibres (MCFs), in which the individual cores can be designed to match the transmission properties of standard single mode fiber (SMF), allows for practically independent channels that can be easily separated by passive and low-loss optical devices, while maintaining very similar channel behavior between cores [11]. SDM is further fully compatible with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and may offer more cost-effective solutions than an more dense wavelength grid.…”

Measurement of Modal Dispersion and Group Delay in a Large Core Count Few-Mode Multi-Core Fiber

“…Optical vector network analysis, based on swept wavelength interferometry, provides an easy and fast way to measure the impulse response h(t) and transfer function H(ω) of an optical device, fiber or system 5,6 . A spatially diverse optical vector network analyzer (OVNA) with three input and output ports was set up, as shown in Fig.…”

“…of all the delays ensures all resulting combinations are different and their spacing is larger than the maximum duration of the impulse response to measure. The different components h ij (t) of the impulse response, pertaining to different combination of polarization, input-and output port, are then easily separated by temporal windowing of the Fourier transform of the received interferogram 6 . In the presented case, to analyze the 39-core 3-mode fiber, the same two photonic lanterns (PLs) are employed as mode multi-and de-multiplexers for all cores and core 39-which is a single mode (SMF) core-is employed as the reference arm.…”

“…Two auxiliary structures allow compensation of experimental impairments: first, an additional reference interferometer allows compensation of sweep frequency non-linearity 6 , second, to overcome an observed wavelength dependence of the output state of polarization from the single mode core, the signal of the reference arm is polarized and split, before serving as reference on the polarization diverse receiver. The additional copy of the polarized reference signal is recorded on an additional channel of the analog to digital converter (ADC) and its intensity profile over time is used to normalize the recorded interferogram, successfully compensating for the varying beating efficiency resulting from different states of polarization at different wavelengths.…”

“…The complexity of the MIMO processing is determined first by the required dimensions, i.e., the number of spatial channels considered for joint MIMO processing, and second by the maximum length of the combined impulse response of those channels, which determines the required number of taps 2,4 . Optical vector network analysis has been shown to be a powerful tool to easily measure the full complex impulse response of an SDM device, fiber or system, providing all key characteristics such as insertion loss, mode-dependent loss and differential modal group delay (DMD) 5,6 .…”