微纳光纤端面反射特性的实验测量方法

微纳光纤的端面反射特性是影响其传输特性及实际应用的重要因素之一. 本文提出了一种基于光环形器的微纳光纤端面反射特性测量方法. 该方法克服了3 dB耦合器直接测量法的不足, 通过引入气凝胶固定和功率补偿, 可有效地消除微纳光纤尾纤飘摆、光源输出不稳定及其内部损耗等不利因素, 从而提高测量的准确度. 采用该方案实验测量了微纳光纤的端面反射率及其与 光纤直径和传输波长间的关系. 实验结果与数值模拟结果相符, 表明该方法可有效地用于微纳光纤端面反射率测量及其与各特性参数之间关系的分析, 这对于微纳光纤激光器、放大器、耦合器及滤波器等光学微型器件的设计制作具有重要意义. 关键词： 光纤光学 微纳光纤 端面反射 光环形器

Measurement of end-face reflection property of micro-nano fibers

The end-face reflection property of micro-nano fiber (MNF) is one of its important transmission features, which plays remarkable roles in a variety of practical applications of MNF. In this paper, we propose a novel method to study the MNF end-face reflection property using an optical circulator, which overcomes the deficiencies of the direct measurement relying on a 3 dB coupler. On the basis of this method, we further introduce the aerogel fixing and power compensation techniques to effectively eliminate the errors caused by MNF pigtail floating, the light source output instability and internal loss. Therefore, the whole experimental design improves the measurement accuracy. The MNF end-face reflections with respect to the diameter of MNF and the wavelength of the guided light are investigated. The experimental results are in good agreement with simulation results, showing that this new approach is reliable for measuring the reflectivity of specific MNF. This detailed investigation on the end-face reflection versus various factors will be conducive to the constructions of versatile micro-nano scale devices based on the MNF, such as the MNF lasers, MNF amplifiers, MNF couplers and MNF filters.
Keywords： fiber optics micro-nano fiber end-face reflection optical circulator