A liquid lens-based broadband variable fiber optical attenuator

To the best of our knowledge, proposed is the first variable fiber optical attenuator (VFOA) using an electronically controlled variable focus liquid lens. The approach uses the changes in the radius of curvature of the liquid lens edge to enable an electronically controlled optical wedge that produces a varying beam tilt angle. In effect, changing beam tilt within a single mode fiber (SMF) lens free space coupling assembly leads to a polarization independent broadband VFOA design. The demonstrated VFOA experiment shows broadband operation over the 1530–1560 nm C-Band with a 40 dB dynamic range, <0.5 dB resolution, 0.3 dB polarization dependant loss, 4.3 dB fiber-to-fiber optical loss, 3 dB optical bandwidth from 1510 nm to 1700 nm, and switching time of <100 ms. Applications for this VFOA include use in hand held test and measurement equipment.