Efficient self-aligning multibeam coupling into a single-mode fiber

Abstract

We present and demonstrate a method for efficient coupling of many beams into a single-mode fiber. Using the phase conjugating property for mutually incoherent beams of the double phase conjugate mirror (DPCM), we achieved coupling for a full 6/spl times/6 matrix of beams into a single-mode fiber. In principle, this number of input channels can be increased manyfold beyond the 36 used in our experiment. Of the phase conjugate generated by the DPCM in the direction of the fiber, over 97% (Fresnel corrected) entered the fiber, thus giving a highly accurate coupling. The DPCM transmission efficiency itself was measured at 40% (Fresnel corrected), thus giving an overall coupling efficiency of 39%. By optimizing the DPCM parameters, a significantly higher overall coupling could be achieved. An additional advantage of this method is that the DPCM will reconfigure if there are small changes in the system, thus making the system very robust. This multichannel coupling method can be of importance in the coupling of the output beams of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) into a single-mode fiber where each channel may carry independently modulated information. This technique can be further generalized to a bidirectional multisingle-mode fiber interconnection system, of which a basic 3/spl times/2 system is demonstrated. >