Birefringence effects in multi-core fiber: coupled local-mode theory

© 2016 Optical Society of America. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modifications of the content of this paper are prohibitedIn this paper, we evaluate experimentally and model theoretically the intra- and inter-core crosstalk between the polarized core modes in single-mode multi-core fiber media including temporal and longitudinal birefringent effects. Specifically, extensive experimental results on a four-core fiber indicate that the temporal fluctuation of fiber birefringence modifies the intra- and inter-core crosstalk behavior in both linear and nonlinear optical power regimes. To gain theoretical insight into the experimental results, we introduce an accurate multi-core fiber model based on local modes and perturbation theory, which is derived from the Maxwell equations including both longitudinal and temporal birefringent effects. Numerical calculations based on the developed theory are found to be in good agreement with the experimental data.This work has been partly funded by Spain National Plan project MINECO/FEDER UE XCORE TEC2015-70858-C2-1-R; HIDRASENSE RTC-2014-2232-3; European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Galician Regional Government under project GRC2015/018. A. Macho and M. Morant work was supported by BES-2013-062952 F.P.I. Grant and postdoc UPV PAID-10-14 program, respectively.Macho-Ortiz, A.; García Meca, C.; Fraile-Peláez, FJ.; Morant Pérez, M.; Llorente Sáez, R. (2016). Birefringence effects in multi-core fiber: coupled local-mode theory. Optics Express. 24(19):21415-21434. doi:10.1364/OE.24.021415S2141521434241