Design mode filtering interferometer using etched double clad fiber

Abstract Mode filtering technique is one of the most desired techniques in optical fiber communication systems, especially for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) coherent optical communications that have mode-dependent losses in communication channels. In this work, a special type of optical fiber sensing head was used, where it utilizes DCF13 that is made by Thorlabs and has two numerical apertures (NA’s). One is for core and 1st cladding region, while the 2nd relates the 1st cladding to the 2nd cladding. Etching process using 40 % hydro-fluoric (HF) acid was performed on the DCF13 with variable time in minutes. Investigation of the correlation between the degree of etching and the refractive index (RI) profile of double-clad fibers for low order linearly polarized (LP) modes is the focus of this work research. The used software programs to simulate the effect of etching are Comsol Multi-Physics V6 and Optigrating V4.2.2. It is seen that the optimum case that gave highest cladding power to core power ratio is the case of etching for 10 min, which can be used for detection applications. This ratio greatly affects the sensitivity of the system.