Enabling photonic technologies for seeing-limited telescopes:fabrication of integrated photonic lanterns on a chip

摘要

In this paper we present theoretical and laboratory results on integrated directly-written photonic lanterns with varyingtaper lengths. These lanterns convert seeing-limited light into multiple diffraction limited signals, in other words,a multimode signal into multiple single-mode signals. We investigated 19-channel structures which were written withina 30-mm-long glass block and designed to operate at 1550 nm. A single structure consisted of a multimode waveguidewhich transitioned into an array of single-mode waveguides and then back to a multimode waveguide utilizing cosinetaper transitions. Based on simulations we found that transition lengths of 6 mm were sufficient to obtain throughput ata level of ~95%. Fabricated devices showed losses (coupling and transition losses) at the level of 30% for injectionF/# & 5 and taper lengths & 5 mm. We believe that such devices show great promise for future use in astronomy.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.