Strongly-coupled multi-core fiber and its optical characteristics for MIMO transmission systems

We review recent progress on coupled multi-core fiber (MCF) technologies for optical multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission. First, we define types of MCF, namely non-coupled/coupled single-/few-mode MCF, and briefly report recent work on non-coupled/coupled MCF. We next describe the advantage of using coupled MCF in MIMO transmission systems, and present a coupled MCF design based on an analysis of coupling between super-modes in twisted bent MCF. We finally describe our experimental results for our strongly coupled MCF and its applicability for optical MIMO transmission systems. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.