Ray tracing through a two ball uniaxial sapphire lens system in a single mode fiber-to-fiber coupler

Author

Landry, Gary D. ; Maldonado, Theresa A.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Texas Univ., Arlington, TX, USA

Volume

14

Issue

3

fYear

1996

fDate

3/1/1996 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

509

Lastpage

512

Abstract

A worst case ray trace analysis is presented for a two ball uniaxial lens system in a single mode fiber-to-fiber coupler. The purpose is to determine if the e-wave Poynting vector walkoff effect contributes adversely to coupling loss due to beam offset. Sapphire ball lenses with radii of 250 μm separated by 500 μm are used to produce numerical results at λ=1.3 μm. A worst case offset of 4.302 μm is calculated at the coupler exit. In addition, aberration due to birefringent focusing is examined; uniaxial ball lenses focus the o-wave and e-wave at different points

Keywords

aberrations; birefringence; lenses; optical design techniques; optical fibre couplers; optical fibre losses; optical focusing; ray tracing; sapphire; vectors; 1.3 mum; 500 mum; beam offset; birefringent focusing; coupler exit; coupling loss; e-wave; e-wave Poynting vector walkoff; numerical results; o-wave; ray tracing; sapphire ball lenses; single mode fiber-to-fiber coupler; two ball uniaxial lens system; two ball uniaxial sapphire lens system; uniaxial ball lens; worst case offset; worst case ray trace analysis; Birefringence; Lenses; Optical coupling; Optical fiber couplers; Optical fiber polarization; Optical fibers; Optical losses; Optical refraction; Optical variables control; Ray tracing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/50.485614

Filename

485614