Related papers: Multicore fibre photonic lanterns for precision ra…
For the past forty years, optical fibres have found widespread use in ground-based and space-based instruments. In most applications, these fibres are used in conjunction with conventional optics to transport light. But photonics offers a…
We present a new way to mitigate focal-ratio degradation (FRD) when using optical fibers to transport multimode light. Our approach exploits a custom multicore fiber (MCF) with six dissimilar cores that are single mode at ~1550 nm…
We report on the development of a compact (volume $\approx$ 100\:cm$^3$), multimode diffraction-limited Raman spectrograph and probe designed to be compact as possible. The spectrograph uses `off the shelf' optics, a custom 3D-printed…
Optical fibers have altered astronomical instrument design by allowing for a complex, often large instrument to be mounted in a remote and stable location with respect to the telescope. The fibers also enable the possibility to rearrange…
The thin and flexible nature of optical fibres often makes them the ideal technology to view biological processes in-vivo, but current microendoscopic approaches are limited in spatial resolution. Here, we demonstrate a new route to high…
Originally envisioned as a solution for the capacity crunch in telecommunications networks, multicore fibers (MCF) are contributing to scientific fields beyond telecom, such as sensing and metrology. Confined within the same cladding, the…
This paper reports on the modal noise characterisation of a hybrid reformatter. The device consists of a multicore-fibre photonic lantern and an ultrafast laser-inscribed slit reformatter. It operates around 1550 nm and supports 92 modes.…
Multicore fibers are gaining growing attention in astronomy. The two main attributes which make them attractive for astronomy are that they reduce the distance between cores and hence have a superior fill factor to other approaches and they…
We demonstrate that photonic lanterns based on tapered multicore fibres provide an efficient way to couple multimode states of light to a two-dimensional array of Single-Photon Avalanche Detectors (SPADs), each of which has its own…
Multi-mode fibers (MMFs) and single-mode fibers (SMFs) are widely used in optical communication networks. MMFs are the practical choice in terms of cost in applications that require short distances. Beyond that, SMFs are necessary because…
Photonic lanterns are made by adiabatically merging several single-mode cores into one multimode core. They provide low-loss interfaces between single-mode and multimode systems where the precise optical mapping between cores and individual…
A multimode optical receiver for free space optical communications (FSOC) based on a photonic lantern and adaptive optics coherent beam combining (CBC) of the lantern's single-mode outputs is proposed and demonstrated for the first time.…
Photonic lanterns allow for a low-loss transformation of a multimode waveguide into a discrete number of single-mode waveguides and vice versa, thus, enabling the use of single-mode photonic technologies in multimode systems. In this…
The photonic lantern (PL) is a tapered waveguide that can efficiently couple light into multiple single-mode optical fibers. Such devices are currently being considered for a number of tasks, including the coupling of telescopes and…
Using ultrafast laser inscription, we report the fabrication of a prototype three-dimensional 121-waveguide fan-out device capable of reformatting the output of a 120 core multicore fiber (MCF) into a one-dimensional linear array. When used…
We propose and theoretically analyse a novel hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (PCF) that is engineered so as to strongly suppress higher order modes, i.e., to provide robust LP$_{01}$ single-mode guidance in all the wavelength ranges…
We present a new concept of an integrated optics component capable of measuring the complex amplitudes of the modes at the tip of a multimode waveguide. The device uses a photonic lantern to split the optical power carried by an $N$-modes…
The use of multicore optical fibers is now recognized as one of the most promising methods to implement the space-division multiplexing techniques required to overcome the impending capacity limit of conventional single-mode optical fibers.…
Multicore fibers (MCF) are perspective media for telecommunications, sensing, imaging and laser technologies. Here, the effect of beam stirring between weakly coupled cores is observed for sub-nanosecond transform-limited pulses of several…
We demonstrate the use of an optimized 5 core photonic lantern (PL) to simultaneously measure tip/tilt errors at the telescope focal plane, while also providing the input to an instrument. By replacing a single mode (SM) fiber with the PL…