Design and fabrication of elliptical-core few-mode fiber for MIMO-less data transmission

We propose a design strategy of elliptical core few-mode fiber (e-FMF) that supports three spatial modes with enhanced mode spacing between LP11a and LP11b, to suppress intra-mode coupling during mode-division multiplexing (MDM) transmission. Our theoretical investigations show that there exist two optimization regimes for the e-FMF, as a comparison with traditional circular core FMF(c-FMF). At the regime of three-mode operation, there occurs a trade-off between mode spacing and bending-induced loss. Meanwhile, in terms of five-mode regime, a trade-off between mode spacing and high-order mode crosstalk happens. Finally, we fabricate 7.94 km e-FMF with the optimal parameters, based on the commercial fiber manufacture facility. The primary characterizations at 1550 nm show that three spatial modes of e-FMF can be transmitted with a loss less than 0.3 dB/km. Meanwhile, -22.44 dB crosstalk between LP11a and LP11b is observed, even when the 2 km e-FMF is under stress-induced strong perturbation. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America