Institut De Ciencies Fotoniques, Fundacio Privada

Institucio Catalan De Recerca I Estudis Avancats

Institucio Catalana De Recerca I Estudis Avancats

Agustin Joel Villatoro

Valerio Pruneri

Goncal Badenes

Gonçal Badenes

A compact and stable interferometer is easily built only with fusion splices. The air-holes of a microstructured fiber are intentionally collapsed in the vicinity of the splices and this broadens the propagating optical mode, allowing coupling from core to cladding modes. The transmission spectrum is sinusoidal and of single frequency, indicating predominant interference between the fundamental core mode () and a cladding mode (). A regular interference spectrum can be observed from 650 nm to 1600 nm with fringe visibility reaching 80%. The fringe spacing is inversely proportional to the distance between the splices. This behavior has a significant impact in optical sensing and communications and so the interferometer can be applied for strain sensing. The device comprises two splices () of a microstructured optical fiber (), said splices () determining two regions in which the air-holes () are collapsed, separated a length (L) along which said two modes are excited.

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Barcelona, Spain

Agustin Joel Villatoro