June 2017
Spotlight Summary by Peter J. Mosley
On-chip splicer for coupling light between photonic crystal and solid-core fibers
Connecting different types of optical fiber with low loss is not a straightforward operation. Fusion splicers that create a permanent joint between fibers by heating with an arc are remarkably precise and robust—so much so that telecoms single-mode fiber can be spliced with negligible loss while standing in a hole in the road with traffic passing by. However, the same technique is less successful when applied to microstructured fiber, in particular hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (PCF). The micron-scale air holes that guide light in PCF deform when subjected to high temperatures, typically leading to lossy and fragile splices. Instead, the authors present a heat-free method of connecting two fibers within a trench lithographically patterned into a thick layer of photoresist on silicon. Etching the substrate before application of the photoresist enables fibers of different diameter to be aligned on-axis. The authors show that the transmission can exceed 90% even for joints between bandgap-guiding HCPCF—which has an intricate cladding structure and relatively small core—and conventional single-mode fiber. This method of mechanical splicing is vacuum-compatible and hence could be particularly pertinent for fabricating fiber-integrated vapor cells.
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Article Information
On-chip splicer for coupling light between photonic crystal and solid-core fibers
Rubayet Al Maruf and Michal Bajcsy
Appl. Opt. 56(16) 4680-4684 (2017) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF