Photorefractive coupler for fault-tolerant coupling

Author

Chiou, A. ; Pochi Yeh ; Chang-Xi Yang ; Gu, Chen

Author_Institution

Rockwell Inst. Sci. Center, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA

Volume

7

Issue

7

fYear

1995

fDate

7/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

789

Lastpage

791

Abstract

We report the first experimental demonstration of a fault-tolerant laser-to-fiber coupler that is insensitive to both angular and lateral misalignments. Fault-tolerance is achieved by sending a laser beam into a photorefractive crystal that automatically senses and tracks the location of the fiber facet, and diffracts the input beam (via self-generated adaptive dynamic holograms) into the fiber. Using an argon laser (514.5 nm), a barium titanate crystal, and a multimode fiber (core diameter=400 μm, NA=0.16), we have achieved a coupling efficiency of 58% and a tolerance of more than 0.5 mm of lateral misalignment. Techniques to improve the coupling efficiency and the degree of fault tolerance, and to extend this method for the coupling of a laser diode output into a single-mode fiber are discussed.

Keywords

barium compounds; holography; laser beams; optical communication equipment; optical couplers; optical fibre couplers; photorefractive materials; 400 mum; 514.5 nm; 58 percent; Ar; BaTiO/sub 3/; angular misalignments; argon laser; barium titanate crystal; coupling efficiency; fault-tolerant coupling; fault-tolerant laser-to-fiber coupler; fiber facet; input beam; laser diode output; lateral misalignment; lateral misalignments; multimode fiber core diameter; photorefractive coupler; photorefractive crystal; self-generated adaptive dynamic holograms; single-mode fiber coupling; tolerance; Argon; Diffraction; Fault location; Fault tolerance; Fiber lasers; Laser beams; Optical coupling; Optical fiber couplers; Photorefractive effect; Photorefractive materials;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/68.393207

Filename

393207