Helical-grating two-mode fiber spatial-mode coupler

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Abstract
The authors investigate a helical-grating geometry for coupling the spatial modes in a two-mode fiber. The feasibility of making fiber grating filters based on this geometry is investigated. By adding mode strippers at the input and output of a helical-grating spatial-mode coupler, an optical notch filter is demonstrated with 0.3-dB waveguide loss, 24-dB extinction, and 24-nm spectral width. The effect of small ellipticity in the fiber core is also investigated, and it is shown that polarization-insensitive coupling can be achieved in a fiber with a sufficiently circular core.