Manufacturing and characterization of asymmetric evanescent field polished fiber couplers for fiber grating assisted mode selective coupling

Mode division multiplexing (MDM) could bring a technological progress in the field of optical telecommunication by increasing the data transmission bandwidth. A key challenge for enabling MDM lies in manufacturing of efficient and cost-effective mode–selective fiber couplers. The fiber grating based mode selective coupling approach is a method that is currently being under research in this context. In this work a novel process for manufacturing of asymmetric evanescent field polished couplers is presented which enables grating assisted mode selective coupling. In addition, we discuss the optical setup developed for characterization of these couplers.