Air-core ring fiber with >1000 radially fundamental OAM modes across O, E, S, C, and L bands

Abstract

In this work, an air-core ring fiber is designed with a record high 1322 orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes at 1550 nm while maintaining radially single-mode condition. Moreover, it can support over 1004 OAM modes across all O, E, S, C, and L bands, exploiting to our knowledge the highest number of OAM modes ever supported in the optical fiber within a wide wavelength range. Simulations show that, across the C and L bands, the fiber with 55-μm air-core radius and 0.45- μm ring width can preserve 3.3 × 10-3 effective refraction index difference between the two highest-order OAM modes HE340,1 and EH271,1. This enables efficient mode separation, and thus achieving stable OAM modes transmission. The effective refractive index differences between the even and odd fiber eigenmodes are also analyzed in the elliptical and bent fibers. We note that higher-order OAM modes are more tolerant to the fiber ellipticity and bending. This ring fiber design has the potential to increase the spectral efficiency and the overall capacity in fiber-based communications system.