Description
There is an impending capacity crunch for current optical fibre communications networks. The foremost solution to increase network bandwidth is the deployment of high spatial density multicore fibres. However, the integration of these fibres into the network requires additional fibre amplifiers for every new fibre core. Repeaters in subsea cables are volume restricted and cannot currently accommodate the increased spatial demands, so new amplifier components are necessary to maximise volume utilisation. Using the femtosecond laser direct write technique, optical components required for fibre amplifiers such as isolators, splitters and wavelength filters can be integrated onto a compact photonic chip that is shared among all optical amplifiers of a subsea repeater. This drastically decreases the volume requirements of amplifiers for efficient use in subsea cable links. For the integration of these components into photonic circuits, ultra-low numerical aperture waveguides have been written so that thin film optical materials can be inserted into the waveguide path to create optical isolators and wavelength filters. The design and fabrication of these ultra-low numerical aperture waveguide devices will be presented, followed by the characterisation of their performance as optical components.
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