Modal response sensitivity to polarization across photonic lantern architectures

TL;DR

This study investigates how the polarization of input light affects the output of various 3-mode photonic lanterns, revealing that strongly coupled structures are highly polarization-sensitive while mode-selective ones are not.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of polarization sensitivity across different photonic lantern architectures, highlighting the impact of coupling and symmetry.

Findings

Strongly coupled photonic lanterns show high polarization sensitivity.

Mode-selective lanterns exhibit near polarization independence.

Output response varies significantly with input polarization in certain architectures.

Abstract

This paper examines the polarization-dependent output of various types of 3-mode photonic lanterns fabricated using double-clad fibers. We explore the sensitivity of the modal response across several types of photonic lanterns, from the fully symmetric and strongly coupled structure of regular photonic lanterns to the fully asymmetric structure of mode-selective photonic lanterns. We demonstrate the high sensitivity of the output of photonic lanterns with strong coupling between their ports to the polarization of the input state. In contrast, ports with high isolation or low coupling, such as in mode-selective photonic lanterns, exhibit responses that are almost polarization independent.