Inter-mode Crosstalk Research Articles

Enhancing computational efficiency in topology-optimized mode converters via dynamic update rate strategies

In the big data era, mode division multiplexing, as a technology for extended channel capacity, demonstrates potential in enhancing parallel data processing capability. Consequently, developing a compact, high-performance mode converter through efficient design methods is an urgent requirement. However, traditional design methodologies for these converters face significant computational complexities and inefficiencies. Addressing this challenge, this paper introduces a novel topology optimization design method for mode converters employing a Dynamic Adjustment of Update Rate (DAUR). This approach markedly reduces computational overhead, accelerating the design process while ensuring high performance and compactness. As a proof-of-concept, an ultra-compact dual-mode converter was designed. The DAUR method demonstrated an 80% reduction in computational time compared to traditional methods, while maintaining a compact design (only 1.4 μm × 1.4 μm) and an insertion loss under 0.68 dB across a wavelength range of 1525 nm to 1575 nm. Meanwhile, simulated inter-mode crosstalk remained below − 24 dB across a 40 nm bandwidth. A comprehensive comparison with traditional inverse design algorithms is presented, demonstrating our method’s superior efficiency and effectiveness. Our findings suggest that DAUR not only streamlines the design process but also facilitates exploration into more complex micro-nano photonic structures with reduced resource investment.

Ultra-broadband multimode fiber-to-chip edge coupler based on periodically segmented waveguides.

Mode-division multiplexing (MDM) technology demonstrates a bright outlook for enhancing the capacity of chip-scale or fiber-based optical communication. Nevertheless, the fiber-to-chip MDM optical interconnects are hindered by the considerable mode mismatch and inter-modal cross talk between the few-mode fiber (FMF) and on-chip few-mode waveguide (FMW). In this Letter, a new, to the best of our knowledge, multimode coupling solution based on periodically segmented waveguides for the MDM system is proposed, which achieves efficient conversion between LP01, LP11a, and LP11b modes in FMF and E11, E21, and E12 modes in FMW with low refractive index difference. The simulation results show that the coupling loss is less than 0.41, 0.27, and 0.90 dB for the three modes, over the wavelength range of 1100-1800 nm. The fabricated device based on a polymer platform shows low fiber-to-chip coupling losses of less than 1.8, 1.7, and 3.0 dB, respectively, over a 130 nm wavelength. The presented scheme provides a competitive solution for realizing the ultra-efficient integration of prospective fiber-chip optical interconnections and communications.

Inter-Mode Crosstalk Estimation between Cores for LPmn Modes in Weakly Coupled Few-Mode Multicore Fiber with Perturbations.

A novel inter-mode crosstalk (IMXT) model of LPmn mode for weakly coupled few-mode multicore fiber is proposed based on the coupled mode theory (CMT) with bending and twisting perturbations. A universal expression of the mode coupling coefficient (MCC) between LPmn modes is derived. By employing this MCC, the universal semi-analytical model (USAM) of inter-core crosstalk (ICXT) can be applied to calculate the IMXT. Simulation results show that our model is generally consistent with previous theories when stochastic perturbations are absent. Moreover, our model can work effectively when stochastic perturbations are present, where former theories are not able to work properly. It has been theoretically found that the MCC has an intimate relationship with core pitch. Our model, based on the CMT, can provide physical characteristics in detail, which has not been reported clearly by former theories. In addition, our model is applicable to phase-matching and non-phase-matching regions of both real homogeneous and heterogeneous few-mode multicore fibers (FM-MCFs) with a wider range of applications.

Ultra-compact and fabrication-tolerant multimode photonic jumpers based on dual Bezier curves.

Compact routing of multimode bus waveguides is of great significance for on-chip mode-division multiplexing (MDM) systems to realize high integration density and flexible layout. In this Letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel, to the best of our knowledge, multimode photonic jumper (MPJ) on a standard silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. It enables an ultra-compact connection between two parallel multimode waveguides (MWGs) with an arbitrary displacement. As a proof of concept, we describe two MPJs with displacements of 5.9 µm and 0.6 µm, each supporting three modes and featuring a longitudinal distance of around 14 µm. For both MPJs, the experimental results show insertion losses (ILs) below 0.086 dB and inter-modal cross talk (CT) below -17.6 dB over the wide wavelength range of 1525-1600 nm for all three modes.

Modeling and analysis of crosstalk-avoided and crosstalk-aware approaches in spectrally-spatially elastic optical networks

Inter-core crosstalk (Ic-Xt) and inter-mode crosstalk (Im-Xt) occur during the transmission of optical signals through multi-core multi-mode fibers in spectrally-spatially elastic optical networks (SS-EONs), which degrade the signal quality. Xt-Avoided (Xt-Av) and Xt-Aware (Xt-Aw) approaches, respectively, are used in SS-EONs for dealing with Ic-Xt and Im-Xt. From the network deployment perspective, network operators need to understand which approach, Xt-Av or Xt-Aw, is better in order to deal with Ic-Xt and Im-Xt in SS-EONs. To address the above issue, this paper models and analyzes Xt-Av and Xt-Aw approaches by considering Ic-Xt and Im-Xt simultaneously in SS-EONs. We formulate the optimization problems as the integer linear programming (ILP) problem for both Xt-Av and Xt-Aw approaches. When the ILP problems are intractable, we introduce heuristics for Xt-Av and Xt-Aw approaches. We compare ILP and heuristic approaches using Xt-Av and Xt-Aw in terms of the maximum allocated spectrum slot index, blocking ratio, and computation time. Numerical results indicate that the Xt-Aw approach for all Xt threshold values performs better than the Xt-Av approach in terms of resource utilization. At the same time, the Xt-Av approach has the advantage of using less computation time than the Xt-Aw approach. The analysis reveals that, in the Xt-Aw approach, the behavior of the maximum allocated spectrum slot index and blocking ratio on Xt threshold is reciprocal, and hence a suitable Xt threshold that enhances the network performances is required for network management.

Low crosstalk 125 μm cladding heterogeneous six-core few-mode fiber with air-hole array and trench structure

In order to be compatible with the current optical fiber communication network, we propose a 125 μm diameter heterogeneous six-core two linear polarization modes fiber with air-hole array and trench (HAT) structure. The coupled power theory and finite element method (FEM) are used to investigate inter-core crosstalk (ICXT), bending loss, and other properties. The HAT structure can effectively suppress ICXT; and the maximum ICXT is less than −38 dB/100 km in C + L band. The effective refractive index difference (Δneff) between modes is greater than 3 × 10-3, inter-mode crosstalk (IMXT) can be ignored. The maximum intrinsic loss is 0.187 dB/km; relative core multiplicity factor reaches 32.21. The relative spatial efficiency is 18 times that of traditional single-mode fibers. This fiber can be produced by chemical vapor deposition and existing optical fiber manufacturing technology. The designed fiber can be directly connected to the communication network to reduce the cost of equipment renewal, and the communication capacity can be increased by 18 times.

Ultra-Broadband, Compact Arbitrary-Ratio Multimode Power Splitter Based on Tilted Subwavelength Gratings

Mode division multiplexing (MDM) technology is an effective solution for high-capacity optical interconnection, and multimode power splitters, as essential components in MDM systems, have attracted widespread attention. However, supporting a wide range of modes and arbitrary power splitting ratios with large bandwidth in power splitters remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we designed a power splitter based on a subwavelength grating (SWG) structure with tilted placement on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. We achieve arbitrary TE0–TE9 mode-insensitive power distribution by altering the filling coefficient of the SWG. Thanks to our specific selection of cladding materials and compensatory design for the optical wave transmission and reflection shifts induced by SWG, our device demonstrates low additional loss (EL < 1.1 dB) and inter-mode crosstalk (−18.8 < CT < −60 dB) for optical modes ranging from TE0 to TE9, covering a wavelength range from 1200 nm to 1700 nm. Furthermore, our proposed device can be easily extended to higher-order modes with little loss of device performance, offering significant potential in MDM platforms.

Hill-shaped refractive index 16-core fiber with 160 channels of low crosstalk and high RCMF

We present a hill-shaped refractive index (HS-RI) structure in 16-core fiber that can provide 160 channels for the transmission system. The HS-RI mainly settles the issue of the large inter-mode crosstalk (IMXT) between LP21 mode and LP02 mode. We obtain the optimized parameters using the finite element method. Numerical analyses reveal that the inter-core crosstalk (ICXT) of all modes is smaller than −30dB/100km in the C band, and the effective mode refractive index difference (Δneff) is more than 1×10−3. The minimum effective mode field area can achieve 89.80µm2, which greatly reduces the nonlinearity of fiber. The max dispersion is 15.59ps/(nm∗km), which can greatly guarantee signal quality in the transmission process. he relative core multiplexing factor (RCMF) can reach 65.81, which realizes the high space division multiplexing rate. The proposed fiber can be applied to a space division multiplexing system to enhance the fiber transmission channels and capacity.

Vision transformers motivating superior OAM mode recognition in optical communications.

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) has recently obtained tremendous research interest in free-space optical communications (FSO). During signal transmission within the free-space link, atmospheric turbulence (AT) poses a significant challenge as it diminishes the signal strength and introduce intermodal crosstalk, significantly reducing OAM mode detection accuracy. This issue directly impacts the performance of OAM-based communication systems and leads to a reduction in received information. To address this critical bottleneck of low mode recognition accuracy in OAM-based FSO-communications, a deep learning method based on vision transformers (ViT) is proposed for what we believe is for the first time. Designed carefully by numerous experts, the advanced self-attention mechanism of ViT captures more global information from the input image. To train the model, pretraining on a large dataset, named IMAGENET is conducted. Subsequently, we performed fine-tuning on our specific dataset, consisting of OAM beams that have undergone varying AT strengths. The computer simulation shows that based on ViT method, the multiple OAM modes can be recognized with a high accuracy (nearly 100%) under weak-to-moderate turbulence and with almost 98% accuracy even under long transmission distance with strong turbulence (C N2=1×10-14). Our findings highlight that leveraging ViT enables robust detection of complex OAM beams, mitigating the adverse effects caused by atmospheric turbulence.

Trench-assisted multi-ring-core fiber for orbital angular momentum modes

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing technology has attracted significant interest due to its ability to increase the data transmission capacity in optical communications. By combining OAM-based mode division multiplexing (MDM) and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) techniques in multi-core fiber (MCF), the transmission rate and spectral efficiency of the optical communication systems can be greatly enhanced. In this paper, we present a design of a multi-ring air-core trench-assisted fiber that supports transmission over the entire C + L (1530–1625 nm) band with low inter-ring crosstalk. The high-contrast ring and trench design can effectively suppress the inter-modal crosstalk. The effects of the ring spacing, wavelength range and doping concentration on the crosstalk suppression are also systematically investigated. Furthermore, the complexity of the MIMO processing system is greatly reduced with a fewer-optical-core structure while keeping low inter-ring crosstalk. The results demonstrate that our designed fiber can support 140 OAM modes at 1550 nm with < −79.4 dB inter-ring crosstalk at low Ge-doped concentration (12.5 mol%), and it can keep the inter-ring crosstalk below −66.56 dB across the C + L band, which features lower inter-ring crosstalk than the other reports while supporting more OAM modes. Furthermore, to support more OAM modes with lower inter-ring crosstalk and intra-modal crosstalk, we further provide a second low-doping-concentration (12.5 mol%) fiber design, which can support 196 OAM modes with < −35.74 dB inter-ring crosstalk and Δneff > 5.39 × 10−4. Additionally, our designed fiber can support 224 OAM modes (37.5 mol% Ge-doped) and < −63 dB inter-ring crosstalk with low intra-modal crosstalk (Δneff > 5.45 × 10−4) and flat dispersion distribution (chromatic dispersion slope lower than 0.171 ps/nm2/km) across the C + L band.

Efficient digital metasurfaces for full-space manipulation of acoustic waves with low crosstalk between reflection and transmission

Metasurfaces, as a class of emergent platforms, have shown enormous potentials in controlling classical waves. However, achieving simultaneous and dynamic manipulations of reflected and transmitted waves in a low-crosstalk and high-efficiency manner via a single metasurface still remains huge challenges in fact, especially for acoustic waves that lack of available vector degrees of freedom. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an acoustic full-space digital metasurface consisting of arrays of dual-channel elements with variable coding states, and the reflected and transmitted sound waves can be controlled independently and dynamically. Benefitting from the dual-frequency design and the mode suppression effect, the presented element not only attains high efficiency (up to 80% in transmission mode, and nearly 100% in reflection mode), but also enables decoupled modulations of the reflection and transmission coefficients. To illustrate the presented acoustic metasurface, tunable beam deflection and alterable wave focusing are experimentally validated without inter-modal crosstalk on both sides of the platform, respectively. This work opens an avenue to control sound waves in multiple dimensions, which may further promote the development of miniaturized acoustic devices with high integration and versatility.

Terahertz fiber with multi-concentric ring cores for OAM modes propagation

A novel fiber incorporating central hollow, porous isolated layers, and concentric ring cores is proposed for the simultaneous propagation of multi-terahertz (THz) orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes with low-level inter-core and inter-mode crosstalk. The designed fiber can efficiently support 132 OAM modes in 0.6 ∼ 1.5 THz, 178 OAM modes in 0.7 ∼ 1.5 THz, etc, the high-order radial modes are suppressed within the whole frequency range meanwhile, and the number of OAM modes can be further boosted by further increasing the number of ring cores. In addition, the fiber has low confinement loss, flat dispersion, and high purity over a wide operating range. Hence it can be applied in mode-division multiplexing (MDM) based on OAM combined with core-division multiplexing (CDM) in THz range, and is also compatible with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and multi-level modulation formats. The realized fiber is expected to dramatically extend the transmission capacity and spectral efficiency.

Design Consideration, Numerical and Experimental Analyses of Mode-Division-Multiplexed (MDM) Silicon Photonics Integrated Circuit with Sharp Bends.

Due to the popularity of different high bandwidth applications, it is becoming increasingly difficult to satisfy the huge data capacity requirements, since the traditional electrical interconnects suffer significantly from limited bandwidth and huge power consumption. Silicon photonics (SiPh) is one of the important technologies for increasing interconnect capacity and decreasing power consumption. Mode-division multiplexing (MDM) allows signals to be transmitted simultaneously, at different modes, in a single waveguide. Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and orthogonal-frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) can also be utilized to further increase the optical interconnect capacity. In SiPh integrated circuits, waveguide bends are usually inevitable. However, for an MDM system with a multimode bus waveguide, the modal fields will become asymmetric when the waveguide bend is sharp. This will introduce inter-mode coupling and inter-mode crosstalk. One simple approach to achieve sharp bends in multimode bus waveguide is to use a Euler curve. Although it has been reported in the literature that sharp bends based on a Euler curve allow high performance and low inter-mode crosstalk multimode transmissions, we discover, by simulation and experiment, that the transmission performance between two Euler bends is length dependent, particularly when the bends are sharp. We investigate the length dependency of the straight multimode bus waveguide between two Euler bends. High transmission performance can be achieved by a proper design of the waveguide length, width, and bend radius. By using the optimized MDM bus waveguide length with sharp Euler bends, proof-of-concept NOMA-OFDM experimental transmissions, supporting two MDM modes and two NOMA users, are performed.

Broadband, Low‐Crosstalk, and Massive‐Channels OAM Modes De/Multiplexing Based on Optical Diffraction Neural Network

AbstractOptical communication technology based on the wavelength, time, polarization, and complex amplitude of light is approaching a bottleneck, while the spatial dimension is relatively unexplored. Orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams are an important group of spatial light beams that are promising for increasing the optical communication capacity based on their orthogonality. To effectively utilize this spatial dimension of light, broadband and low‐crosstalk OAM mode de/multiplexing devices are indispensable. In this work, by exploiting an optical diffraction neural network, a low‐crosstalk OAM de/multiplexer operating in the full C+L band is developed and demonstrated. The device can support 16 OAM modes (l = ±1 to ±8) with 5 phase plates (8‐level phase), and the designed insertion loss and average intermode crosstalk are better than −2.8 and −30.9 dB, respectively. In particular, multiplexing and demultiplexing are experimentally performed on the same device. The measured average insertion loss in mutltiplexing and demulteplexing is −6.1 to −5.4 and −6.8 to −5.8 dB, respectively, and the corresponding average intermode crosstalk is −27.2 to −22.7 and −26.5 to −22.4 dB. The results in this work have great application prospects for the design of mode de/multiplexers and mode division multiplexing communication systems.

Broadband Wavelength Conversion for Hybrid Multiplexing Signals Based on a Parallel Dispersion-Engineered Silicon Waveguide

Broadband all-optical wavelength conversion (AOWC) for hybrid wavelength- and mode-division multiplexing (WDM-MDM) signals is experimentally demonstrated based on degenerate four-wave mixing in a silicon chip with a parallel dispersion-optimized multimode nonlinear waveguide and mode (de)multiplexers. By simultaneously coupling two modes into the waveguide using an optical fiber array, the intermodal crosstalk is measured to be as low as −25.9 dB for the fundamental mode of the transverse electric mode (TE <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> ) (or −23.6 dB for the first-order mode TE <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sub> ), and the conversion efficiency is −25.4 dB for TE <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> (or −26.3 dB for TE <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sub> ) mode. A wide conversion bandwidth of ∼68 nm is measured except for the influence of the crosstalk, which is the first time to experimentally demonstrate the broadband wavelength conversion for MDM signal. Using a 4 × 10 Gbit/s on-off keying (OOK) hybrid WDM-MDM signal, four AOWC channels are obtained on the idlers and the power penalty of each channel is less than 2.7 dB at the bit-error-ratio of 1 × 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">−9</sup> .

Brillouin Gain Spectral Manipulation by Modal Brillouin Interaction for FMF Measurement

This paper focuses on the spectral manipulation of Brillouin gain in two-mode few-mode fiber (FMF); modal Brillouin interaction is realized by launching a 2nd probe beam. With this technique, we can obtain the desired Brillouin gain spectrum in each mode by modal Brillouin interaction, which involves the modal Brillouin loss and the superposition of modal Brillouin acoustic waves. Experiments demonstrate accurate measurement of the desired intra-modal Brillouin gain spectrum with reduced influence from inter-modal crosstalk.

Fabrication and Characterization of an Optimized Low-Loss Two-Mode Fiber for Optoacoustic Sensing.

An optimized multi-step index (MSI) 2-LP-mode fiber is proposed and fabricated with low propagation loss of 0.179 dB/km, low intermodal crosstalk and excellent bend resistance. We experimentally clarified the characteristics of backward Brillouin scattering (BBS) and forward Brillouin scattering (FBS) induced by radial acoustic modes (R0,m) in the fabricated MSI 2-LP-mode fiber, respectively. Via the use of this two-mode fiber, we demonstrated a novel discriminative measurement method of temperature and acoustic impedance based on BBS and FBS, achieving improved experimental measurement uncertainties of 0.2 °C and 0.019 kg/(s·mm2) for optoacoustic chemical sensing. The low propagation loss of the sensing fiber and the new measurement method based on both BBS and FBS may pave the way for long-distance and high spatial resolution distributed fiber sensors.

Low cross talk homogeneous few-mode multi-core fiber with a suspended air-trench and V-type index core

We propose a homogeneous 13-core 4 linear-polarized modes fiber based on a suspended air-trench V-type index core (SA-VC) structure that can suppress inter-core cross talk (ICXT) and inter-mode cross talk. The SA structure is used to control ICXT, and the VC structure is used to control inter-mode cross talk. Cross talk and other properties of the fiber are calculated by coupled power theory and the finite element method. The numerical results demonstrate that the SA-VC structure has stronger cross talk suppression ability compared with traditional trench structure, the ICXT meets the requirement of lower than − 30 d B / 100 k m , the effective refractive index difference ( Δ n e f f ) between modes is greater than 1.52 × 10 − 3 , the maximum intrinsic loss is 0.189 dB/km, and the relative core multiplicity factor reaches 49.09. Based on the current optical fiber fabrication technology, a manufacturing scheme for this fiber preform is proposed. This design structure aims to be applied to communication systems to increase the transmission capacity of optical fibers.

Panda type separated-circles-formed elliptical ring core few-mode fiber

To support large transmission and reduce inter-mode crosstalk, we designed a polarization-maintaining few-mode fiber (PM-FMF) with a separated-circles-formed elliptical ring core and two stress rods. This fiber can support ten different polarization modes with tunable chromatic dispersion. With the stress-rods-induced birefringence and the high refractive index difference of 0.03 between the core and the cladding, the fiber can separate adjacent guided modes from each other. The effective refractive index differences between these modes all remain above 1.2 × 10−4 over the entire C + L band. In addition, the special separated-circles-formed elliptical ring structure of this few-mode fiber can provide a new degree of freedom for the regulation of chromatic dispersion. The chromatic dispersion can be simply adjusted by changing the radius of the small circles.

96-Channel on-chip reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer for multidimensional multiplexing systems

Abstract The multi-dimensional multiplexing technology is very promising for further increasing the link capacity of optical interconnects. A 96-channel silicon-based on-chip reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) is proposed and demonstrated for the first time to satisfy the demands in hybrid mode/polarization/wavelengthdivision-multiplexing systems. The present ROADM consists of a six-channel mode/polarization de-multiplexer, a 6 × 16 array of microring-resonator (MRR)-based wavelength-selective switches, and a six-channel mode/polarization multiplexer. With such a ROADM, one can add/drop optical signals to/from any channels of the multimode bus waveguide arbitrarily. For the designed and fabricated ROADM chip, there are more than 1000 elements integrated monolithically, including 96 MRRs, 576 waveguide crossings, 192 grating couplers, 96 micro-heaters, 112 pads, six polarization-splitter-rotators (PSRs), four asymmetric adiabatic couplers and four asymmetric directional couplers. For any channel added/dropped with the fabricated ROADM, the on-chip excess loss is about 5–20 dB, the inter-mode crosstalk is &lt;−12 dB, and the inter-wavelength crosstalk is &lt;−24 dB. The system experiments are demonstrated by using 10-GBaud quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signals, showing that the observed optical signal noise ratio (OSNR) power penalties induced by the ROADM are less than 2 dB at a BER of 3.8 × 10−3.