Optimized moth-eye anti-reflective structures for As2S3 chalcogenide optical fibers.

We computationally investigate moth-eye anti-reflective nanostructures imprinted on the endfaces of As2S3 chalcogenide optical fibers. With a goal of maximizing the transmission through the endfaces, we investigate the effect of changing the parameters of the structure, including the height, width, period, shape, and angle-of-incidence. Using these results, we design two different moth-eye structures that can theoretically achieve almost 99.9% average transmisison through an As2S3 surface.

Angle-of-incidence performance of random anti-reflection structures on curved surfaces.

Random anti-reflection structured surfaces (rARSS) have been reported to improve transmittance of optical-grade fused silica planar substrates to values greater than 99%. These textures are fabricated directly on the substrates using reactive-ion etching techniques, and often result in transmitted spectra with no measurable interference effects (fringes) for a wide range of wavelengths. The inductively coupled reactive-ion plasma (ICP-RIE) used in the fabrication process to etch the rARSS is anisotropic and thus well suited for planar components. The improvement in spectral transmission has been found to be independent of optical incidence angles for values from 0° to ±30°. Qualifying and quantifying the rARSS performance on curved substrates, such as convex lenses, is required to optimize the fabrication of the desired AR effect on optical-power elements. In this work, rARSS was fabricated on fused silica plano-convex lenses using a planar-substrate optimized ICP-RIE process to maximize optical transmission in the range from 500 to 1100 nm. Results are presented from optical transmission tests of rARSS lenses for both TE and TM incident polarizations at a wavelength of 633 nm and over a 70° full field of view. These results suggest optimization of the fabrication process to account for anisotropy is not required, mainly due to the wide angle-of-incidence AR tolerance performance of the rARSS lenses.

Characterization of mid-infrared single mode fibers as modal filters.

We present a technique for measuring the modal filtering ability of single mode fibers. The ideal modal filter rejects all input field components that have no overlap with the fundamental mode of the filter and does not attenuate the fundamental mode. We define the quality of a nonideal modal filter Q(f) as the ratio of transmittance for the fundamental mode to the transmittance for an input field that has no overlap with the fundamental mode. We demonstrate the technique on a 20 cm long mid-infrared fiber that was produced by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. The filter quality Q(f) for this fiber at 10.5 microm wavelength is 1000+/-300. The absorption and scattering losses in the fundamental mode are approximately 8 dB/m. The total transmittance for the fundamental mode, including Fresnel reflections, is 0.428+/-0.002. The application of interest is the search for extrasolar Earthlike planets using nulling interferometry. It requires high rejection ratios to suppress the light of a bright star, so that the faint planet becomes visible. The use of modal filters increases the rejection ratio (or, equivalently, relaxes requirements on the wavefront quality) by reducing the sensitivity to small wavefront errors. We show theoretically that, exclusive of coupling losses, the use of a modal filter leads to the improvement of the rejection ratio in a two-beam interferometer by a factor of Q(f).

Wavelength dependence of the scattering loss in fluoride optical fibers.

Scattering losses as low as 0.025 dB/km at 2.55 microm have been measured in short lengths of fluoride-glass optical fiber.These measurements were made on several 5-7-cm lengths of fiber. Measurements were also made at various wavelengths to determine the wavelength dependence of the optical loss.