Design and demonstration of single-mode operation in few-mode optical fiber with low-bending loss

Single-mode operation with low-bending loss based on few-mode optical fiber is investigated. The fiber is designed with a group of ring modes in the cladding. The higher-order modes in the fiber can be eliminated by splicing with the single-mode optical fiber and bending the fiber to induce a strong coupling between the ring modes and the higher-order modes. Experimental results show that the bending losses of the LP01 mode can be lower than 0.001 dB/turn for a low-bending radius of 7.5 mm. The low-bending loss and the low splicing loss characteristics are also demonstrated. The proposed fiber can be bent multiple turns with a small bending radius which is preferable for fiber-to-the-home-related applications.