Nanoprinted microstructure-assisted light incoupling into high-numerical aperture multimode fibers

• DOI: 10.1364/ol.521471
• Publication Date: 2024-03-12T12:01:17Z
• Authors: Matthias Zeisberger; Henrik Schneidewind; Torsten Wieduwilt; Oleh Yermakov; Markus A. Schmidt
• Keywords: Numerical aperture

The coupling of light into optical fibers is limited by the numerical aperture (NA). Here, we show that large-area polymer axial-symmetric microstructures printed on silica multimode improve their incoupling performance two to three orders magnitude beyond limit. A ray-optical mathematical model describing impact grating-assisted complements experimental investigation. This study clearly demonstrates improvement nanoprinting fibers, opening new horizons, best our knowledge, for fiber applications in life sciences, quantum technologies, and "lab-on-fiber" devices.