Ultrafast-laser inscription of a three dimensional fan-out device for multicore fiber coupling applications

A fan-out device has been fabricated using ultrafast-laser waveguide-inscription that enables each core of a multicore optical fiber (MCF) to be addressed by a single mode fiber held in a fiber V-groove array (FVA). By utilizing the unique three-dimensional fabrication capability of this technique we demonstrate coupling between an FVA consisting of a one-dimensional array of fibers and an MCF consisting of a two-dimensional array of cores. When coupled to all cores of the MCF simultaneously, the average insertion loss per core was 5.0 dB in the 1.55 mu m spectral region. Furthermore, the fan-out exhibited low cross-talk and low polarization dependent loss. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.