Enhancement of Optical Fiber Coupling Based on Collimated and Focused Laser Diode Beam with Micro Aspherical Plano-Convex Lens Fabricated by Excimer Laser

ABSTRACT

In this article, we have proposed and demonstrated experimentally the double plano-convex micro-aspherical lens scheme to amplify an edge-emitting laser diode (LD) to optical fiber coupler. Both microlenses have two different profiles along their x- and the y-axes direction. The optical simulation software Zemax is used to design and optimize the proposed microlens profile and then fabricate by an excimer laser micromachining system. Focal spot size of LD around 9 µm is achieved experimentally. Light coupling efficiency between LD and optical fiber, using this double plano-convex microlens, is 27.57% and 44.23% for single-mode and multi-mode fiber, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Beam collimation
• edge emitting laser diode
• excimer laser micromachining
• fiber coupling efficiency
• micro aspherical plano-convex lens

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan under project numbers MOST 104-3113-E-006-002, MOST 104-2622-E-006-012-CC2, and MOST 104-2119-M-006-011.