Splicing Single-mode Fibers Research Articles

All fiber M-Z interferometer for high temperature sensing based on a hetero-structured cladding solid-core photonic bandgap fiber.

We proposed and experimentally demonstrated a high temperature fiber sensor using a hetero-structured cladding solid-core photonic bandgap fiber (HCSC-PBGF) for the first time to our knowledge. A hetero-structured cladding solid-core photonic bandgap fiber is designed and fabricated that supports vibrant core mode and cladding mode transmission. Then, an all fiber M-Z interference sensor is constructed by splicing single mode fiber at both ends of HCSC-PBGF without any other micromachining. The transmission characteristics of HCSC-PBGF are analyzed with a full-vector beam propagation method and a full-vector finite element method, and the simulation results are consistent with experiment results. The sensitivity of this fiber sensor is as high as 0.09 nm/°C when operating from room temperature to 1000 °C, and the fringe contrast keeps stable and clear. It is obvious that this all fiber sensor will have great application prospects in fiber sensing with the advantages of a compact structure, high sensitivity, and cost-effectiveness.

High-power ultrafast Yb:fiber laser frequency combs using commercially available components and basic fiber tools.

We present a detailed description of the design, construction, and performance of high-power ultrafast Yb:fiber laser frequency combs in operation in our laboratory. We discuss two such laser systems: an 87 MHz, 9 W, 85 fs laser operating at 1060 nm and an 87 MHz, 80 W, 155 fs laser operating at 1035 nm. Both are constructed using low-cost, commercially available components, and can be assembled using only basic tools for cleaving and splicing single-mode fibers. We describe practical methods for achieving and characterizing low-noise single-pulse operation and long-term stability from Yb:fiber oscillators based on nonlinear polarization evolution. Stabilization of the combs using a variety of transducers, including a new method for tuning the carrier-envelope offset frequency, is discussed. High average power is achieved through chirped-pulse amplification in simple fiber amplifiers based on double-clad photonic crystal fibers. We describe the use of these combs in several applications, including ultrasensitive femtosecond time-resolved spectroscopy and cavity-enhanced high-order harmonic generation.

Temperature insensitive PCF interferometer coated with graphene oxide tip sensor

We report a simple, compact, and robust photonic crystal fiber (PCF)-based Mach–Zehnder modal interferometer coated with graphene oxide (GO) for monitoring refractive index (RI) of analyte (sucrose). GO is prepared by Hummers method, and the fabrication of sensing probe is achieved by splicing single-mode fiber with solid core PCF followed by collapsing of air holes at the end face of PCF. The PCF along with the collapsed region is functionalized and then coated with GO. The proposed tip sensor in reflection mode can be used for the detection of RI of a small quantity of sucrose in either intensity or/and wavelength interrogation. Our experimental results show that the sensor has wavelength sensitivity as high as 230-nm/RIU along with very high intensity sensitivity of 130 dB/RIU with negligible shift in interference pattern with rise temperature.

Fabry-Perot based strain insensitive photonic crystal fiber modal interferometer for inline sensing of refractive index and temperature.

We report a highly stable, compact, strain insensitive inline microcavity-based solid-core photonic crystal fiber (SCPCF) modal interferometer for the determination of the refractive index (RI) of an analyte and its temperature. The interferometer is fabricated by splicing one end of SCPCF with single-mode fiber (SMF) and the other end with hollow-core PCF. This is followed by cleaving the part of the solid glass portion possibly present after the microcavity. The formation of the cavities at the end faces of the SCPCF results in reduction of the period of the interference pattern that helps in achieving distinctiveness in the measurement. Three sensor heads have been fabricated, and each has a different length of the collapsed region formed by splicing SMF with SCPCF. The response of the sensors is found to be sensitive to the length of this collapsed region between SMF and SCPCF with a sensitivity of 53 nm/RI unit (RIU) and resolution of 1.8×10(-4) RIU. The temperature response of the sensor is found to be linear, having a temperature sensitivity of 12 pm/°C. In addition to these findings, the effect of strain on the proposed structure is analyzed in both wavelength and intensity interrogation.

Numerical and experimental analysis of fusion offset in splicing photonic crystal fiber with CO2 laser

Single mode fibers (SMFs) need more fusion energy than PCFs during a splicing process, and it is necessary to make some offsets of the center of heat source toward to the SMFs. Based on the study of characteristics of heat transfer of PCFs and SMFs during splicing process with CO2 laser as the heat source, this paper reports the first systematic analysis of the optimal splicing offset of splicing SMFs and PCFs in theory and experiments. The results show that fusion splicing offsets can be applied to control the air-hole collapse and realize the practical splicing process between PCFs and SMFs with low loss.

Microbubble based fiber-optic Fabry–Perot interferometer formed by fusion splicing single-mode fibers for strain measurement

We demonstrate an all-fiber optical Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) strain sensor whose cavity is a microscopic air bubble. The bubble is formed by fusion splicing together two sections of single-mode fibers (SMFs) with cleaved flat tip and arc fusion induced hemispherical tip, respectively. The fabricated interferometers are with bubble diameters of typically ~100 μm. Strain and temperature sensitivities of fabricated interferometers are studied experimentally; a strain sensitivity of over 4 Pm/με and a thermal sensitivity of less than 0.9 Pm/°C is obtained.

10 x 112Gb/s PDM-QPSK transmission over 5032 km in few-mode fibers

Few-mode fibers (FMFs) are used for the first time to transmit over 5000 km. Ten WDM channels with 50GHz channel spacing at 112 Gb/s per channel using PDM-QPSK are launched into the fundamental mode of the FMFs by splicing single-mode fibers directly to the FMFs. Even though few-mode fibers can support an additional spatial mode LP(11) at 1550 nm, the signal remains in the fundamental mode and does not experience mode coupling throughout fiber transmission. After each span the signal is collected by a second single-mode fiber which is also spliced to the FMF. Span loss is compensated by single-mode EDFAs before it is launched to the next FMF span. The lack of mode coupling ensures that the signal does not suffer any impairments that may result from differential mode delay or excess loss. Therefore the FMFs used in this "single-mode operation" have the same bandwidth as single-mode fibers. Experimental results verified that FMFs have the significant advantage of large core size which reduces the nonlinear impairments suffered by the signal. It is shown that FMFs with an effective area of 130 μm(2), have an optimum launch power 2 dB higher compared to standard single-mode fibers and as a result a 1.1 dB improvement in the Q-factor is obtained after 3000 km.

Long distance transmission in few-mode fibers

Using multimode fibers for long-haul transmission is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. In particular few-mode fibers (FMFs) are demonstrated as a good compromise since they are sufficiently resistant to mode coupling compared to standard multimode fibers but they still can have large core diameters compared to single-mode fibers. As a result these fibers can have significantly less nonlinearity and at the same time they can have the same performance as single-mode fibers in terms of dispersion and loss. In the absence of mode coupling it is possible to use these fibers in the single-mode operation where all the data is carried in only one of the spatial modes throughout the fiber. It is shown experimentally that the single-mode operation is achieved simply by splicing single-mode fibers to both ends of a 35-km-long dual-mode fiber at 1310 nm. After 35 km of transmission, no modal dispersion or excess loss was observed. Finally the same fiber is placed in a recirculating loop and 3 WDM channels each carrying 6 Gb/s BPSK data were transmitted through 1050 km of the few-mode fiber without modal dispersion.

Thermal wavelength stabilization of Bragg gratings photowritten in hole-filled microstructured optical fibers

We demonstrate that the resonance wavelength of fiber Bragg gratings photowritten in the core of microstructured optical fibers can be efficiently stabilized versus temperature by inserting suitable refractive index materials with a negative thermal sensitivity into the holes. By these means, the effective index of the guided mode undergoes thermal variations which counterbalance the effect of the grating period thermal drift. The residual excursion of the resonance wavelength can be limited to less than +/- 10 pm over a 70 degrees C range of temperature into Microstructured Optical Fibers (MOFs) having realistic geometrical parameters, and using existing refractive index materials. Low cost passively stabilized reflectors with insertion loss lower than 0.3 dB can be realized by splicing single mode fibers at both ends of a short length of a filled MOF including the fiber Bragg grating.