Divide and conquer: an efficient solution to highly multimoded photonic lanterns from multicore fibres

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Applied Physics
• Optical Engineering

Background:

• Photonic lanterns enable single-mode operation in multimode fibers, crucial for various scientific applications.
• Previous fabrication methods limited the creation of large-aperture, highly multimoded to single-mode lanterns.
• Mass replication of complex photonic lanterns has been a significant challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a novel approach for fabricating large-aperture photonic lanterns using multicore fibers.
• To overcome the limitations of existing techniques for producing highly multimoded to single-mode photonic lanterns.
• To present a scalable and practical solution for advanced optical fiber systems.

Main Methods:

• Development of three proof-of-concept devices utilizing multicore fiber photonic lanterns.
• Characterization of lanterns with 100µm core diameters and numerical apertures (NAs) of 0.16 and 0.15.
• Utilizing 7 multicore fibers (each with 37 cores) as a replacement for 259 individual single-mode fibers.

Main Results:

• Achieved an average insertion loss of only 0.4dB (over 91% transmission), excluding coupling efficiencies.
• Demonstrated a viable alternative to traditional single-mode fiber arrays for complex photonic devices.
• Successfully fabricated functional multicore fiber photonic lanterns.

Conclusions:

• Multicore fiber photonic lanterns provide a scalable and advantageous solution for large-aperture optical systems.
• This technique simplifies the integration of photonic functions, such as fiber Bragg gratings.
• The developed devices offer a new pathway for creating large-area optical fiber slicers for next-generation telescopes.