All-chalcogenide single-mode optical fiber couplers.

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Optical Engineering
• Materials Science
• Fiber Optics

Background:

• Optical fiber couplers are essential components in photonic integrated circuits.
• Chalcogenide glasses offer unique nonlinear optical properties and broad infrared transparency.
• Existing fabrication methods for optical fiber couplers often lack versatility and performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate the fabrication of all-chalcogenide single-mode optical fiber couplers.
• To engineer the functionality of these couplers through precise geometric design.
• To achieve high performance metrics for broadband couplers, wavelength division multiplexers, and polarization beamsplitters.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of all-chalcogenide single-mode optical fiber structures.
• Geometric design optimization for specific coupler functionalities.
• Characterization of coupling ratios, extinction ratios, and polarization performance.

Main Results:

• Successfully fabricated broadband couplers with arbitrary coupling ratios.
• Achieved coupling extinction ratios up to 35 dB for wavelength division multiplexers.
• Obtained polarization extinction ratios up to 18 dB for polarization beamsplitters.

Conclusions:

• All-chalcogenide optical fiber couplers can be fabricated with engineered functionalities.
• The demonstrated devices offer high performance for various optical signal processing applications.
• This work advances the development of integrated photonic devices using chalcogenide materials.