학술논문

Connecting Hollow-Core and Standard Single-Mode Fibers With Perfect Mode-Field Size Adaptation
Document Type
Periodical
Source
Journal of Lightwave Technology J. Lightwave Technol. Lightwave Technology, Journal of. 42(6):2124-2130 Mar, 2024
Subject
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Photonics and Electrooptics
Optical fiber dispersion
Couplings
Optical fiber sensors
Optical fiber communication
Claddings
Splicing
Propagation losses
Hollow-core fiber
nested antiresonant nodeless fiber
fiber interconnection
mode-field adaptation
higher-order mode
low-loss coupling
Language
ISSN
0733-8724
1558-2213
Abstract
We propose an approach to interconnect a hollow-core fiber (HCF) of arbitrary core size with standard single-mode fiber with perfect mode-field size adaptation and experimentally achieve for the first time insertion loss agreeing with that predicted by simulations. We demonstrate this using three low-loss HCFs, including 1st window nested antiresonant nodeless fiber (NANF), 2nd window NANF and the state-of-the-art double NANF (DNANF). The connection with a minimum achieved insertion loss of 0.079 dB was permanently secured via gluing and did not degrade during 4 weeks of continuous measurement. To the best of our knowledge, this is the lowest reported value and is comparable to or lower than the connection between dissimilar single-mode fibers (e.g., standard single-mode fiber and dispersion-compensating fiber). We also show that such connection leads to excellent suppression of higher-order modes coupling, of importance to all applications sensitive to multi-path interference. Importantly, obtaining agreement between simulations and experiments validates for the first time the accuracy of the simulations and opens the door to further optimization via simulations with the ability to subsequently achieve the same result experimentally.