Rayleigh scattering in few-mode optical fibers

• DOI: 10.1038/srep35844
• Publication Date: 2016-10-24T09:20:39Z
• Authors: Zhen Wang; Hao Wu; Xiaolong Hu; Ningbo Zhao; Qi Mo; Guifang Li
• Keywords: Reflectometry

Abstract The extremely low loss of silica fibers has enabled the telecommunication revolution, but single-mode fiber-optic communication systems have been driven to their capacity limits. As a means overcome this crunch, space-division multiplexing (SDM) using few-mode (FMF) proposed and demonstrated. In optical fibers, Rayleigh scattering serves as dominant mechanism for loss. However, date, role in FMFs remains elusive. Here we establish experimentally validate general model FMFs. backscattering not only sets intrinsic limit also provides theoretical foundation time-domain reflectometry, which can be used probe perturbation-induced mode-coupling dynamics We show that forward inter-modal ultimately fundamental on inter-modal-crosstalk Therefore, work implications specifically SDM broadly fiber optics its applications amplifiers, lasers, sensors crosstalk imposes performance limitation.