Tunable mode-selective characteristics of a mode-filter petal-fiber with liquid rods

Abstract

In this paper, a novel tunable mode-filter optical fiber consisting of a high-index core and petal-shaped cladding surrounded by a high-index outer ring is proposed. The cladding of the fiber is formed with periodically arranged liquid rods that support cladding modes with effective indexes. These cladding modes form a two-super-mode group. The mode-selection is realized by the coupling between the core mode and the super-mode group. With the petal-shaped cladding, cladding mode can be transmitted at high loss. With the liquid rods, the index-band of super-mode group can be adjusted by external temperature field, thereby achieving the purpose of tunable mode-selective. The super-mode group formed by the LP₁₁ mode of the liquid rods effectively increases its operating bandwidth and temperature tuning range. The numerical simulation results show that the mode-filter fiber with a length of only 71.4 mm can achieve a particular mode loss more than 20 dB, while other modes’ losses are below 1 dB. This special fiber can be used as a mode-filter in the few-mode fiber transmission system to reduce mode crosstalk of converters, multiplexer/demultiplexer, optical switch and optical routing.