Insertion loss of a multi-plane light conversion device with few mode fiber outputs under atmospheric conditions

Sarah A. Tedder; Brian E. Vyhnalek; Yousef K. Chahine; Bertram Floyd

doi:10.1117/12.2607306

4 March 2022 Insertion loss of a multi-plane light conversion device with few mode fiber outputs under atmospheric conditions

Sarah A. Tedder, Brian E. Vyhnalek, Yousef K. Chahine, Bertram Floyd

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11993, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXIV; 1199305 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2607306
Event: SPIE LASE, 2022, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

A key challenge of photon counting optical communication is delivering light with atmospherically distorted wavefronts from the telescope to detectors efficiently. When using fiber coupled single photon detectors, the efficiency of the transmittance is constrained by the modes supported by the fiber. The number of modes supported by a fiber depends on the size of the core. The larger the core, the more modes supported. However, commercial off the shelf superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) are currently limited in area, which limits the core size of the fibers that can efficiently couple to the detectors. To increase the amount of light that can be delivered to the detectors, NASA Glenn Research Center is considering many different fiber/detector architectures. This paper compares insertion loss of the fiber device for two different architectures: • a multi-plane light conversion device to split the light from a 30 µm core diameter fiber into 7 separate, 15 μm core diameter few-mode fibers butt-coupled to 7 single-element SNSPDs, and • a 30 μm core diameter multimode fiber butt-coupled to a 16 multi-element, SNSPD array. The measured insertion loss for each fiber device under emulated atmospheric conditions with D/r0 between 2 and 30 is presented. The multi-plane light conversion device shows a consistent ~1 dB loss more than the multimode fiber. Also presented is the measured uneven power splitting of the multiplane light conversion device, especially at lower D/r₀. How this uneven power splitting contributes to system loss called blocking loss is discussed.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Sarah A. Tedder, Brian E. Vyhnalek, Yousef K. Chahine, and Bertram Floyd "Insertion loss of a multi-plane light conversion device with few mode fiber outputs under atmospheric conditions", Proc. SPIE 11993, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXIV, 1199305 (4 March 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2607306

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