Space-Division Multiplexed Optical Communications Over Multi-mode Fiber

Photonics Society

Space-Division Multiplexed Optical Communications Over Multi-mode Fiber

Nicolas Fontaine – Nokia Bell Labs, New Jersey

Space-division multiplexed (SDM) systems use the multiple spatial modes in either multi-core fiber (separated modes), or the spatially overlapping but orthogonal modes in multi-mode fibers to either increase the capacity or photon-efficiency of optical fiber links. The new challenges in SDM are how to couple into and out of the various SDM fibers without insertion loss (IL) or mode-dependent loss (MDL), and building components that have comparable performance to, and that offer a cost advantage over systems using multiple single-mode fibers. We will show several components for space-division multiplexing in multi-mode fibers including “photonic lantern” spatial multiplexers which are lossless adiabatic single-mode to multi-mode converters, multimode amplifiers, and wavelength selective switches for routing signals in few-mode fiber. These components enable transmission of signals across multi-mode fiber using up to 30 spatial and polarization modes.

Biography

Nicolas Fontaine obtained his Ph. D. in 2010 at the University of California, Davis in the Next Generation Network Systems Laboratory [http://sierra.ece.ucdavis.edu] in Electrical Engineering. In his dissertation he studied how to generate and measure the amplitude and phase of broadband optical waveforms in many narrowband spectral slices. Since June 2011, he has been a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories at Crawford Hill, NJ in the advanced photonics division. At Bell Labs, he develops devices for space-division multiplexing in multi-core and few mode fibers, builds wavelength crossconnects and filtering devices, and investigates spectral slice coherent receivers for THz bandwidth waveform measurement.

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– Take Exit 30B onto Marrett Rd in Lexington – Merge into left lane
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