Experimental characterization of a tuneable all-fiber mode converter device for mode-division multiplexing systems

Abstract

In this work, we present a novel scheme to make a controllable, stable, and versatile all-fiber mode converter device. The converter consists of a few modes polarization-maintaining fiber, which is laterally stressed using an electrical actuator. The electrical actuator provides a simple mechanism to control the refractive index changes in the optical fiber thought the elasto-optic phenomena. Thus, it is possible obtain a platform to make mode conversion between the HE11 mode and the TE01, TM01 and HE21 modes. Likewise, the proposed methodology allows controlling the modal conversion trough the variation of the applied force. The results reveal that the performance of the converter depends on the input light polarization, the analyzer angle and the applied force. In addition, the device presents a compact size of 8 cm and shows an excellent performance when is analyzed at 980 nm. Thereby, it is suitable to be implemented for future optical fiber communication systems that employs mode-division multiplexing.

Experimental Dataset of Tunable Mode Converter Based on Long-Period Fiber Gratings Written in Few-Mode Fiber: Impacts of Thermal, Wavelength, and Polarization Variations

“…These devices are now important parts of transmission systems, and need to be carefully designed to have the right number of modes, low crosstalk between modes, high mode-conversion efficiency, or wide operating bandwidth, depending on the method [5,6]. Because of this, numerous research efforts have been directed toward the development of high-performance mode converters, and several types of mode converters have been demonstrated with bulk-optic components [7][8][9][10], optical fibers [11][12][13][14][15][16][17], and optical waveguides [18][19][20]. Bulk-optic mode converters require critical alignment and have a large insertion loss.…”