TY - JOUR
T1 - Low-loss polarization-maintaining fusion splicing of single-mode fibers and hollow-core photonic crystal fibers, relevant for monolithic fiber laser pulse compression
AU - Kristensen, Jesper Toft
AU - Houmann, Andreas
AU - Liu, Xiaomin
AU - Turchinovich, Dmitry
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - We report on highly reproducible low-loss fusion splicing of
polarization-maintaining single-mode fibers (PM-SMFs) and hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCFs). The PM-SMF-to-HC-PCF splices are characterized by the loss of 0.62 ± 0.24 dB, and polarization extinction ratio of 19 ± 0.68 dB. The reciprocal HC-PCF-to-PM-SMF splice loss is found to be 2.19 ± 0.33 dB, which is caused by the mode evolution in HC-PCF. The return loss in both cases was measured to be −14 dB. We show that a splice defect is caused by the HC-PCF cleave defect, and the lossy splice can be predicted at an early stage of the splicing process. We also demonstrate that the higher splice loss compromises the PM properties of the splice. Our splicing technique was successfully applied to the realization of a low-loss, environmentally stable monolithic PM fiber laser pulse compressor, enabling direct end-of-the-fiber femtosecond pulse delivery
AB - We report on highly reproducible low-loss fusion splicing of
polarization-maintaining single-mode fibers (PM-SMFs) and hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCFs). The PM-SMF-to-HC-PCF splices are characterized by the loss of 0.62 ± 0.24 dB, and polarization extinction ratio of 19 ± 0.68 dB. The reciprocal HC-PCF-to-PM-SMF splice loss is found to be 2.19 ± 0.33 dB, which is caused by the mode evolution in HC-PCF. The return loss in both cases was measured to be −14 dB. We show that a splice defect is caused by the HC-PCF cleave defect, and the lossy splice can be predicted at an early stage of the splicing process. We also demonstrate that the higher splice loss compromises the PM properties of the splice. Our splicing technique was successfully applied to the realization of a low-loss, environmentally stable monolithic PM fiber laser pulse compressor, enabling direct end-of-the-fiber femtosecond pulse delivery
U2 - 10.1364/OE.16.009986
DO - 10.1364/OE.16.009986
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1094-4087
VL - 16
SP - 9986
EP - 9995
JO - Optics Express
JF - Optics Express
IS - 13
ER -