Ultrafast laser inscription of a 121-waveguide fan-out for astrophotonics

Using ultrafast laser inscription, we report the fabrication of a prototype three-dimensional 121-waveguide fan-out device capable of reformatting the output of a 120-core multicore fiber (MCF) into a one-dimensional linear array. When used in conjunction with an actual MCF, we demonstrate that the reformatting function using this prototype would result in an overall through put loss of ≈7.0  dB. However, if perfect coupling from the MCF into the fan-out could be achieved, the reformatting function would result in an overall loss of only ≈1.7  dB. With adequate development, similar devices could efficiently reformat the output of so-called "photonic lanterns" fabricated using highly multicore fibers.