The Effect of Spatial Mode Distribution on Coupling Efficiency of Single-Mode Fiber: Theoretical Analysis and Experimental Verification

Abstract

In this study, Zernike polynomials and optical fiber field theory are applied to build a mathematical model of coupling efficiency (CE) and spatial mode of aberrations. The theory built in this paper can be used to quickly calculate the CE affected by a single aberration as well as the aberrations caused by atmospheric turbulence. The aberrations are classified based on Zernike polynomials and the effects of aberrations on CE of different types and different spatial frequencies are analyzed. The influence of the effects of AO system residual errors is also analyzed. Adaptive optics (AO) equipment is applied to build a system on which the proposed theory was tested; the experimental results validate the theoretical analysis.

Keywords

• free space optical communication
• laser communication
• lidar
• gas sensing
• single-mode fiber
• coupling efficiency
• Zernike polynomials
• spatial frequency
• adaptive optics
• atmospheric turbulence