Measurements of few-mode fiber photonic lanterns in emulated atmospheric conditions for a low earth orbit space to ground optical communication receiver application

Sarah A. Tedder; Bertram Floyd; Yousef K. Chahine; Benjamin Croop; Brian E. Vyhnalek; Christopher Betters; Sergio G. Leon-Saval

doi:10.1117/12.2542848

2 March 2020 Measurements of few-mode fiber photonic lanterns in emulated atmospheric conditions for a low earth orbit space to ground optical communication receiver application

Sarah A. Tedder, Bertram Floyd, Yousef K. Chahine, Benjamin Croop, Brian E. Vyhnalek, Christopher Betters, Sergio G. Leon-Saval

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11272, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXII; 112720U (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2542848
Event: SPIE LASE, 2020, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Photonic lanterns are being evaluated as a component of a scalable photon counting real-time optical ground receiver for space-to-ground photon-starved communication applications. The function of the lantern as a component of a receiver is to efficiently couple and deliver light from the atmospherically distorted focal spot formed behind a telescope to multiple small-core fiber-coupled single-element super-conducting nanowire detectors. This architecture solution is being compared to a multimode fiber coupled to a multi-element detector array. This paper presents a set of measurements that begins this comparison. This first set of measurements are a comparison of the throughput coupling loss at emulated atmospheric conditions for the case of a 60 cm diameter telescope receiving light from a low earth orbit satellite. The atmospheric conditions are numerically simulated at a range of turbulence levels using a beam propagation method and are physically emulated with a spatial light modulator. The results show that for the same number of output legs as the single-mode fiber lantern, the few-mode fiber lantern increases the power throughput up to 3.92 dB at the worst emulated atmospheric conditions tested of D/r₀=8.6. Furthermore, the coupling loss of the few-mode fiber lantern approaches the capability of a 30 micron graded index multimode fiber chosen for coupling to a 16 element detector array.

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Sarah A. Tedder, Bertram Floyd, Yousef K. Chahine, Benjamin Croop, Brian E. Vyhnalek, Christopher Betters, and Sergio G. Leon-Saval "Measurements of few-mode fiber photonic lanterns in emulated atmospheric conditions for a low earth orbit space to ground optical communication receiver application", Proc. SPIE 11272, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXII, 112720U (2 March 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2542848

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