Photorefractive splicing device with double phase conjugate mirror using Sn 2 P 2 S 6 :Sb crystal

Abstract

We develop a splicing device for photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) based on a double phase conjugate mirror (DPCM) using a novel photorefractive (PR) Sn₂P₂S₆:Sb 1.5% crystal. This PR splicer has many attractive characteristics including modal field compensation and the automatic reconfiguration of the optical path. Utilizing a DPCM as the splicer, our device can adapt to misalignments automatically since the incident beams continuously rewrite an index grating which formed in the crystal. By the implementation of the Sn₂P₂S₆:Sb crystal, the response time for the characteristic of dynamic reconfiguration is improved several-hundred-fold compared with conventional materials, e.g. BaTiO₃. We demonstrate that the high angular tolerance is provided using the DPCM with the Sn₂P₂S₆:Sb crystal. When the misalignment of the incident angle is from -7° to 8°, the increment of coupling loss is less than 0.6dB. This is several-ten-fold compared with the fusion splicing. We reveal the dependence of the coupling loss on the position of the incident beams and also the dependence of the energy flow on the propagation distance for the first time with the two-dimensional finite-difference beampropagation method. Using our numerical simulation tool, we can visually investigate the beam propagation property considering the influence of the fanning effect in the Sn₂P₂S₆ crystals.