We propose the integration of power over fiber in the next generation 5G radio access network front-haul solutions based on spatial division multiplexing with multicore fibers. The different architectures in both shared-and dedicated-core scenarios for power over fiber delivery and data signals are described. The maximum power to be delivered depending on the efficiencies of the different components is addressed as well as the limits of the delivered energy to avoid fiber fuse and non-linear effects. It is shown how those limits depend on high power laser linewidth, fiber attenuation, link length and fiber core effective area. The impairments related to non-linear effects, multicore fiber crosstalk and temperature are also theoretically analyzed. Experiments show there is no degradation of signal quality for feeding powers of several hundreds of milliwatts for both scenarios in 4-core multicore fibers. This study helps in designing future power by light delivery solutions in Radio over Fiber systems with multicore fibers.

This is a postprint version of the following published document: Pinzon, P.J.; Pérez, I.; Vazquez, C. Efficient Multiplexer/Demultiplexer for Visible WDM Transmission over SI-POF Technology.Abstract: A five channel step index plastic optical fiber proposal for a multiplexer/demultiplexer having insertion losses (IL) of 2.9-4 dB, pass bandwidths at −3dB> 30 nm, crosstalk attenuation >30 dB and size of ∼65 mm × 55 mm, is demonstrated. It is based on a reflective diffraction grating with blazed profile and an aspheric lens. The theoretical analysis presented is used to further reduce the system size to ∼37 mm × 30 mm and to increase the number of channels to 8 keeping ILs < 4.5 dB. Experimental results have good agreement with theoretical expectations.

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