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arXiv · 2304.11323

Multi-Plane Light Conversion: A Practical Tutorial

Yuanhang Zhang·Nicolas K. Fontaine
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Abstract

Multi-plane light conversion (MPLC) has recently been developed as a versatile tool for manipulating spatial distributions of the optical field through repeated phase modulations. An MPLC Device consists of a series of phase masks separated by free-space propagation. It can convert one orthogonal set of beams into another orthogonal set through unitary transformation, which is useful for a number of applications. In telecommunication, for example, mode-division multiplexing (MDM) is a promising technology that will enable continued scaling of capacity by employing spatial modes of a single fiber. MPLC has shown great potential in MDM devices with ultra-wide bandwidth, low insertion loss (IL), low mode-dependent loss (MDL), and low crosstalk. The fundamentals of design, simulation, fabrication, and characterization of practical MPLC mode (de)multiplexers will be discussed in this tutorial.

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Yuanhang Zhang, Nicolas K. Fontaine. 2023-04-22. Multi-Plane Light Conversion: A Practical Tutorial. https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.11323

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