Design and Analysis of Multicore Fiber with High Bend Tolerance and Uniform Effective Area

The design and study of few-mode multi-core fiber (FMMCF) featuring heterogeneous inner cladding regions are presented in this paper. The inter core crosstalk behavior among three spatial modes is studied for four distinct fiber profiles by varying the fiber profile specifications, bending radius and correlation length. The crosstalk characteristics and effective area for all the four fiber refractive index profiles are compared. It has been observed from the simulation results that FMMCF with uniform core and non-uniform inner cladding can be effectively utilized to optimize various parameters such as inter core crosstalk, effective area, critical bending radius, and 115 mm critical bending radius is achieved in the proposed FMMCF. Crosstalk less than − 56 dB/100 km is also achieved in the bending region beyond critical bending radius. Moreover, it is observed that the use of differential inner cladding structure to achieve heterogeneity among cores guarantees nearly uniform mode effective area which is essential in real-time applications. © The Institution of Engineers (India) 2024.