All-fiber-based selective mode multiplexer and demultiplexer for weakly-coupled mode-division multiplexed systems

We show all-fiber-based selective mode multiplexers and demultiplexers for weakly-coupled mode-division multiplexed systems. We fabricate a set of six-mode multiplexer and demultiplexer based on fiber mode selective couplers, and experimentally evaluate the performance for the six-mode dual-polarization (DP) quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) optical signals. In the mode multiplexer and demultiplexer, the mode couplings between the lower three modes and the higher three modes are suppressed to be less than −20 dB, which enables us to apply partial 6×6 MIMO equalizers even for the six-mode demultiplexing. For the six-mode DP-QPSK signals, the penalty of optical signal-to-noise ratio by replacing the full 12×12MIMO to the partial 6×6 MIMO is suppressed by less than 1 dB.