Transmission properties of tapered optical fibres: Simulations and experimental measurements

Piyamas Choochalerm; William E. Martin; Hugh R.A. Jones; Ronny Errmann; Stephanos Yerolatsitis; Thomas A. Wright; Christophe Buisset

doi:10.1016/j.yofte.2021.102632

Transmission properties of tapered optical fibres: Simulations and experimental measurements

Piyamas Choochalerm, William E. Martin, Hugh R.A. Jones, Ronny Errmann, Stephanos Yerolatsitis, Thomas A. Wright, Christophe Buisset

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

8 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

We measured the transmission of tapered and untapered optical fibres as a function of input beam numerical aperture at 635 nm. The tapered fibres were fabricated with an adiabatic tapering process from graded and step-index fibres with 50 μm core diameters to form a 100 mm long taper with 5:1 taper ratio. We tested tapered graded-index and step-index fibres fabricated from commercial Thorlabs products and a custom graded-index taper. The 5:1 tapered graded-index fibre can give a transmission greater than 0.4 for Thorlabs and 0.6 for the custom taper. We simulated the transmission of the tapered fibres and found reasonable agreement with the measured graded-index tapered fibre results across the numerical aperture range of interest. Experimentally, step-index tapered fibres performed relative poorly and considerably below modelling expectations. Based on our examinations this arises because the properties of step-index fibre were not robust to the tapering process. Suitably tapered graded-index fibres may offer a new route for efficient focal ratio reduction of fibre optic signals, e.g., in fibre-fed spectrographs, though we stress that our measurements have been limited to monochromatic light in this work.

Original language	English
Article number	102632
Journal	Optical Fiber Technology
Volume	66
Early online date	24 Jul 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yofte.2021.102632
Publication status	Published - 31 Oct 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
PC is supported by a Thai Government PhD scholarship. Support for WM, HRAJ, RE and the experimental setup is from the STFC Newton Fund ST/R006598/1, ST/P005667/1 and ST/T007311/1. SY is funded by the Opticon EPSRC Proteus project EP/R005257/1.

Funding Information:
This research has been assisted by very useful discussions with Prof. Tim A. Birks of the University of Bath. The Zemax simulation of tapered fibre was assisted by suggestions from Weerapot Wanajareon of Chiang Mai University. This work has made use of the University of Hertfordshire's high-performance computing facility and licensed software Maxlm DL6, COMSOL and Zemax. The authors are very grateful for the patience and constructive comments from the anonymous reviewers in the several revisions of the manuscript. The paper has been considerably improved by their suggestions.

Keywords

Adiabatic tapered fibre
COMSOL
Fibre simulation
Fibre transmission
Graded-index fibre
Numerical aperture characterisation
Step-index fibre
Zemax

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Control and Systems Engineering
Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Instrumentation
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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Cite this

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title = "Transmission properties of tapered optical fibres: Simulations and experimental measurements",

abstract = "We measured the transmission of tapered and untapered optical fibres as a function of input beam numerical aperture at 635 nm. The tapered fibres were fabricated with an adiabatic tapering process from graded and step-index fibres with 50 μm core diameters to form a 100 mm long taper with 5:1 taper ratio. We tested tapered graded-index and step-index fibres fabricated from commercial Thorlabs products and a custom graded-index taper. The 5:1 tapered graded-index fibre can give a transmission greater than 0.4 for Thorlabs and 0.6 for the custom taper. We simulated the transmission of the tapered fibres and found reasonable agreement with the measured graded-index tapered fibre results across the numerical aperture range of interest. Experimentally, step-index tapered fibres performed relative poorly and considerably below modelling expectations. Based on our examinations this arises because the properties of step-index fibre were not robust to the tapering process. Suitably tapered graded-index fibres may offer a new route for efficient focal ratio reduction of fibre optic signals, e.g., in fibre-fed spectrographs, though we stress that our measurements have been limited to monochromatic light in this work.",

keywords = "Adiabatic tapered fibre, COMSOL, Fibre simulation, Fibre transmission, Graded-index fibre, Numerical aperture characterisation, Step-index fibre, Zemax",

author = "Piyamas Choochalerm and Martin, {William E.} and Jones, {Hugh R.A.} and Ronny Errmann and Stephanos Yerolatsitis and Wright, {Thomas A.} and Christophe Buisset",

note = "Funding Information: PC is supported by a Thai Government PhD scholarship. Support for WM, HRAJ, RE and the experimental setup is from the STFC Newton Fund ST/R006598/1, ST/P005667/1 and ST/T007311/1. SY is funded by the Opticon EPSRC Proteus project EP/R005257/1. Funding Information: This research has been assisted by very useful discussions with Prof. Tim A. Birks of the University of Bath. The Zemax simulation of tapered fibre was assisted by suggestions from Weerapot Wanajareon of Chiang Mai University. This work has made use of the University of Hertfordshire's high-performance computing facility and licensed software Maxlm DL6, COMSOL and Zemax. The authors are very grateful for the patience and constructive comments from the anonymous reviewers in the several revisions of the manuscript. The paper has been considerably improved by their suggestions. ",

year = "2021",

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day = "31",

doi = "10.1016/j.yofte.2021.102632",

language = "English",

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T2 - Simulations and experimental measurements

AU - Choochalerm, Piyamas

AU - Martin, William E.

AU - Jones, Hugh R.A.

AU - Errmann, Ronny

AU - Yerolatsitis, Stephanos

AU - Wright, Thomas A.

AU - Buisset, Christophe

N1 - Funding Information: PC is supported by a Thai Government PhD scholarship. Support for WM, HRAJ, RE and the experimental setup is from the STFC Newton Fund ST/R006598/1, ST/P005667/1 and ST/T007311/1. SY is funded by the Opticon EPSRC Proteus project EP/R005257/1. Funding Information: This research has been assisted by very useful discussions with Prof. Tim A. Birks of the University of Bath. The Zemax simulation of tapered fibre was assisted by suggestions from Weerapot Wanajareon of Chiang Mai University. This work has made use of the University of Hertfordshire's high-performance computing facility and licensed software Maxlm DL6, COMSOL and Zemax. The authors are very grateful for the patience and constructive comments from the anonymous reviewers in the several revisions of the manuscript. The paper has been considerably improved by their suggestions.

PY - 2021/10/31

Y1 - 2021/10/31

N2 - We measured the transmission of tapered and untapered optical fibres as a function of input beam numerical aperture at 635 nm. The tapered fibres were fabricated with an adiabatic tapering process from graded and step-index fibres with 50 μm core diameters to form a 100 mm long taper with 5:1 taper ratio. We tested tapered graded-index and step-index fibres fabricated from commercial Thorlabs products and a custom graded-index taper. The 5:1 tapered graded-index fibre can give a transmission greater than 0.4 for Thorlabs and 0.6 for the custom taper. We simulated the transmission of the tapered fibres and found reasonable agreement with the measured graded-index tapered fibre results across the numerical aperture range of interest. Experimentally, step-index tapered fibres performed relative poorly and considerably below modelling expectations. Based on our examinations this arises because the properties of step-index fibre were not robust to the tapering process. Suitably tapered graded-index fibres may offer a new route for efficient focal ratio reduction of fibre optic signals, e.g., in fibre-fed spectrographs, though we stress that our measurements have been limited to monochromatic light in this work.

AB - We measured the transmission of tapered and untapered optical fibres as a function of input beam numerical aperture at 635 nm. The tapered fibres were fabricated with an adiabatic tapering process from graded and step-index fibres with 50 μm core diameters to form a 100 mm long taper with 5:1 taper ratio. We tested tapered graded-index and step-index fibres fabricated from commercial Thorlabs products and a custom graded-index taper. The 5:1 tapered graded-index fibre can give a transmission greater than 0.4 for Thorlabs and 0.6 for the custom taper. We simulated the transmission of the tapered fibres and found reasonable agreement with the measured graded-index tapered fibre results across the numerical aperture range of interest. Experimentally, step-index tapered fibres performed relative poorly and considerably below modelling expectations. Based on our examinations this arises because the properties of step-index fibre were not robust to the tapering process. Suitably tapered graded-index fibres may offer a new route for efficient focal ratio reduction of fibre optic signals, e.g., in fibre-fed spectrographs, though we stress that our measurements have been limited to monochromatic light in this work.

KW - Adiabatic tapered fibre

KW - COMSOL

KW - Fibre simulation

KW - Fibre transmission

KW - Graded-index fibre

KW - Numerical aperture characterisation

KW - Step-index fibre

KW - Zemax

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DO - 10.1016/j.yofte.2021.102632

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SN - 1068-5200

VL - 66

JO - Optical Fiber Technology

JF - Optical Fiber Technology

M1 - 102632

ER -

Transmission properties of tapered optical fibres: Simulations and experimental measurements

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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