Mode excitation theory and experiment of single-mode fiber directional coupler with strong coupling

Abstract

The mode excitation theory is presented to analyze single-mode optical fiber directional couplers with transverse strong coupling, which either the weakly coupling theory or the ray theory fails to expound. By using the equivalence between the waveguides with square and circular cross sections, regarding the coupling zone of the coupler as a single waveguide, the excitation coefficients of the propagation modes in the coupling zone excited by the modes in the input waveguide have been evaluated. The theoretical coupling amount and insertion loss have been studied. Using a special monitoring technique to control the coupling length, several couplers with various coupling amounts have been made by the polishing method. The spectral characteristic of the coupling amount has been measured and compared with the theoretically inferred result. The two are found to agree with each other. The offset effect on the coupling amount has also been measured and it is different from that of the weak coupling device-the Stanford coupler.