Adiabatic higher-order mode microfibers based on a logarithmic index profile

Optical fibers with a logarithmic index profile can provide invariant mode field diameters along a tapered fiber, which enables adiabatic mode transitions for higher-order mode (HOM) microfibers. A microfiber with a waist diameter of _2 ?m is fabricated with an insertion loss lower than 0.03 dB for the LP01 and 0.11 dB for the LP11 mode. The concept of the low loss HOM microfibers can be further extended to include more than one fiber and a 2_2 few mode microfiber coupler is fabricated/characterized in our experiments. These single or multiple spatial channel HOM microfibers are beneficial for various applications, including in particle propulsion, atom trapping, optical sensing and space division multiplexed data transmission systems.