Open AccessDivide and conquer: an efficient solution to highly multimoded photonic lanterns from multicore fibres
Author(s) -
Sergio Leon-Saval,
Christopher Betters,
Joel R. Salazar-Gil,
Seong Sik Min,
Itandehui Gris-Sánchez,
T. A. Birks,
Jon Lawrence,
Roger Haynes,
Dionne Haynes,
Martin Roth,
Sylvain Veilleux,
Joss Bland-Hawthorn
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.25.017530
Subject(s) - photonics , multi core processor , single mode optical fiber , optics , multi mode optical fiber , optical fiber , computer science , transmission (telecommunications) , materials science , optoelectronics , telecommunications , physics , parallel computing
Photonic lanterns typically allow for single-mode action in a multimode fibre. Since their invention over a decade ago for applications in astrophotonics, they have found important uses in diverse fields of applied science. To date, large aperture highly-mulitmoded to single-mode lanterns have been difficult as fabrication techniques are not practical for mass replication. Here as a proof of concept, we demonstrate three different devices based on multicore fibre photonic lanterns with: 100µm core diameters; NAs = 0.16 and 0.15; and requiring 259 single-mode core system, specifically 7 multicore fibres each with 37 cores, instead of 259 individual single-mode fibres. The average insertion loss excluding coupling efficiencies is only 0.4dB (>91% transmission). This concept has numerous advantages, in particular, (i) it is a direct scaleable solution, (ii) eases imprinting of photonic functions, e.g. fibre Bragg gratings; and (iii) new approach for large-area optical fibre slicers for future large-aperture telescopes.