6. R.A. Betts, T. Tjugiarto, Y.L. Xue, and P.L.

Chu, Nonlinear refractive index in erbium-doped optical ber: Theory and experiment, IEEE J Quant Electron 27 (1991), 908 913. 7. N.A. Brilliant and K. Lagonik, Thermal effects in a dual-clad ytterbium ber laser, Optics Lett 21 (2001), 1669 1671. 8. H.X. Su, K.C. Lu, P.G. Yan, Y.G. Li, and F.Y. Lu, DBR Yb-doped double-clad ber laser operating at 1.06 m, Proc SPIE 4914 (2002), 426 429. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF MODE COUPLING ON THE BANDWIDTH CHARACTERISTICS OF STEP-INDEX PLASTIC OPTICAL FIBER
Shilie Zheng, Xiaofeng Jin, and Xianmin Zhang Department of Information and Electronic Engineering Zhejiang University Hangzhou 310027, P.R. China Received 19 August 2005 Figure 5 Several output spectra over the entire shifting range ABSTRACT: The mode coupling of SI-POF is analyzed by observing the far-eld radiation patterns. The results show that no obvious mode coupling occurs at a transmission distance of 5 m. While a transmission distance of 10 30 m occurs, strong mode coupling and the equilibrium mode distribution is established after 30 m. In order to clarify the mode-coupling effect on the bandwidth of step-index plastic optical ber (SI-POF), the bandwidths of SI-POF samples were measured under different launch conditions and compared with theoretical values that neglect mode coupling. It is found that although mode coupling contributes to enhancing the bandwidth of the ber as it averages out the total propagation delays, the energy transfer between the neighboring modes will excite high-order modes during the propagation, which functions to increase the effective numerical aperture (NA) of the incident light and will decrease the bandwidth of the ber. The net effect of mode coupling on the bandwidths of SI-POFs at different launch conditions indicates the competition between the two effects. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 48: 432 435, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop. 21372 Key words: plastic optical ber; bandwidth; mode coupling; launching condition 1. INTRODUCTION

ber [7, 8]. So we can say that this shift is the result of the resonant nonlinearity of the grating. Through measuring the shift of the output wavelength, we can calculate the resonant nonlinearity of the double-clad ber Bragg grating.
5. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we have used residual pump power to induce the resonant nonlinearity of the Yb3 -doped DCF Bragg grating so that the reected central wavelength of the DCF Bragg grating shifts. The central wavelength of the grating was shifted nearly 0.2 nm in our experiment. Due to this result, we can draw the conclusion that this kind of grating has strong resonant nonlinearity and can be implemented in some applications, such as optical switching.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation of China under grant no. 60137010 and the National 863 HighTechnology Project under grant no. 2003AA312100.
REFERENCES 1. Y.H. Tsang, T.A. King, T. Thomas, C. Udell, and M.C. Pierce, Efcient high-power Yb3 -silica ber laser cladding-pumped at 1064 nm, Optics Commun 215 (2003), 381387. 2. L.J. Li, W.D. Fan, Z. Wang, S.G. Fu, Q. Zhang, C.S. Zhang, S.Z. Yuan, and X.Y. Dong, Experimental studies on narrow-linewidth Yb3 -doped double-clad ber lasers based on double-clad ber Bragg gratings, Microwave Opt Technol Lett 44 (2005), 5356. 3. A.S. Kurkov, O.I. Medvedkov, V.I. Karpov, S.A. Vasiliev, O.A. Lexin, E.M. Dianov, and A.N. Guryanov, Photosensitive Yb-doped doubleclad ber for ber lasers, OFC99, 1999, p. 205. 4. S.G. Fu, W.D. Fan, Q. Zhang, Z. Wang, L.J. Li, C.S. Zhang, S.Z. Yuan, and X.Y. Dong, Tunable Yb-doped double-clad ber laser based on ber Bragg grating with narrow linewidth, Chinese Phys Lett 21 (2004), 1279 1281. 5. J.W. Arkwright, P. Elango, G.R. Atkins, T. Whitbread, and M.J.F. Digonnet, Experiment and theoretical analysis of the resonant nonlinearity in Ytterbium-doped ber, J Lightwave Technol 16 (1998), 798 806.

Triggered by the increasing demand for the capacity to access the Internet at high bit rates, much attention has been focused on higher bandwidth communication, even in the ofce and home networks. Plastic optical bers (POFs) are being considered for high-performance ber links at very short distances because of their low cost, robustness, and ease of preparation and connection [1, 2]. The bandwidth of POFs, which denes the limit of information-carrying capacity, is a most important characteristic of the bers intended for data transmission applications. An accurate evaluation of the bandwidth of the POFs is critical in selecting the proper bers for any specic applications. However, the theoretical bandwidth properties of POFs often have some amount of disagreement with those measured in [3]. Generally, for step-index (SI) POFs, the discrepancy of the theoretical bandwidth and the measured one is explained by mode coupling [4]. However, the detailed analysis has not been carried out until now. The bandwidth of POFs depends strongly on launch conditions such as the light source [5], the incident spot away from the center

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Figure 1 Experimental setup for measuring the far-eld radiation pattern

of the core [6], and so on [7]. The numerical aperture (NA) of the light source, which is small in the case of a laser diode and much larger if an LED is utilized, may have an important effect on the bandwidth. Knowledge of mode coupling helps us to select effective methods for enhancing the bandwidth of SI-POFs. In this paper, the mode coupling of SI-POFs is rstly studied by observing their far-eld radiation patterns. Then the bandwidths of SI-POFs are investigated using the incident rays with different NAs at different ber lengths. Comparing the experimentally obtained bandwidths with the theoretical values, the effects of mode coupling on the bandwidth of the SI-POFs are systematically analyzed.
2. EXPERIMENT Figure 3 Far-eld pattern of SI-POF at different lengths under 0.1 NA launch condition

The ber samples used in our experiment are standard SI-POF samples (Agilent Co. Ltd.) with a core refractive index of 1.492 and cladding refractive index of 1.417, which has a theoretical NA of 0.467. The ber diameter is 1 mm, with a core diameter of 980 m. In order to diminish the effects of imperfection on the ber ends to diffraction the light, the two ends of the ber are carefully polished. Figure 1 shows the experimental setup for measuring the fareld radiation pattern. The light from an LD of 650 nm is rst passed through a space lter and then modulated by a chopper at f 1 kHz. After that, it is focused onto the ber by a microscope object (M.O.) with 0.1 or 0.4 NA. A glass slide serves as a beamsplitter between the chopper and the microscope object. The turned beam is sent to a CCD, which helps to adjust the incident beam into the center of the ber. Angular scans of the far-eld intensity are measured using a photo-multiplier tube (PMT), which is 15-cm apart from the output of the ber and mounted on a rotation stage. The electrical signal from the photo-multiplier tubes is sent to a lock-in amplier referenced by the chopper. Figure 2 shows the experimental setup for measuring the transmission bandwidth using the frequency domain method. The RF signals ranging from 50 to 2.5 GHz were generated using a vector network analyzer (ES8722, Agilent). A 650-nm diode laser (MDL300) was used as the light source and was directly modulated by RF signals. The modulated signal was rst collimated and focused onto the ber by one of four micro objectives (0.1, 0.25,

0.40, and 0.65 NA), which provide a source with controllable launch NA. The output of the ber, focused by a lens again, was directly detected by a 2-GHz photodetector (PD) and then amplied by a low-noise amplier (LNA), whose output was in turn connected to another port of the vector network analyzer. The ber lengths were 1, 5, 20, and 50 m. In order to eliminate the curvature effect on the bandwidth, the bers were placed loosely on a plate 35 cm in diameter.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Figure 2 Experimental setup for measuring the transmission bandwidth of SI-POF

Figures 3 and 4 show the angular scans of the far-eld intensity of SI-POF at different ber lengths of 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, and 50 m under launch condition with a low NA of 0.1 and a high NA of 0.4, respectively. In order to see the mode-coupling effect clearly during the light transmission, the far-eld intensities at different lengths were all normalized to that of the center position. It can be seen that the far-eld pattern consisted of the disk under all the test conditions. No matter how the launching NA is, during the rst 510-m transmission, the far-eld patterns are nearly the same, which means that no obvious mode coupling occurs when the ber length is shorter than 5 m. However, with the increasing transmitting length ranging from 10 to 30 m, the diameter of the disks increased rapidly, demonstrating that strong mode-coupling occurs within this ber-length range. After that, when the ber length exceeds 30 m, the overlaps of the far-eld patterns between 30 and 50 m ber indicated that the equilibrium mode distribution had been established in SI-POF. Comparing Figures 3 and 4, it can be seen that when the ber length is shorter than the coupling length, the larger the NA is, the more the modes are excited. However, when the ber length is long enough to establish the equilibrium mode distribution, that is, when the ber is longer than 30 m, the far-eld pattern is independent of the launching NA. Figures 5 and 6 show the frequency responses of the 20-m and 50-m SI-POFs using incident rays with different NA values of 0.1, 0.25, 0.4, and 0.6, respectively. The theoretical frequency response

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Figure 4 Far-eld pattern of SI-POF at different lengths under 0.4 NA launch condition

Figure 6 dent rays

Frequency response of 50-m SI-POF using different NA inci-

of the ber at overlled launch (OFL) condition is computed as follows [8] and the results are also shown: P f 20 log sin fzNA2 /2nc fzNA2 /2nc dB , (1)

where f is the frequency, z is the ber length, n is the refractive index of the core, c is the velocity in vacuum of 3 108 m/s, and NA is the numerical aperture of the ber, equal to 0.467 here.

Figure 5 Frequency response of 20-m SI-POF using different NA incident rays

Generally speaking, mode coupling contributes to enhancing the bandwidth of SI-POF. The transfer of energy between modes with different propagation velocities tends to average out the total propagation delays, thus reducing the intermodal dispersion and increasing the ber bandwidth [9]. The results shown in Figures 5 and 6 can be explained clearly by the previous conclusion of mode coupling in SI-POF. The 3-dB bandwidths of both 20 and 50 m SI-POFs using different NA incident rays are all larger than the theoretical OFL one because the theoretical bandwidth computed from Eq. (1) neglects the effect of mode coupling. Whereas strong mode coupling does exist in SI-POF when the ber length is 10 30 m. Moreover, for the 20-m SI-POF, its length can cause mode coupling to occur, but is not long enough to establish equilibrium mode distribution. Therefore, the bandwidth depends on the launching condition. The smaller the incident rays NA, the smaller the mode delay between the fastest and slowest mode, and hence the bandwidth increases with the decreasing of the incident rays NA. As for the 50-m SI-POF, whose length is long enough to establish the equilibrium mode distribution, the power distribution of the ber is independent of the launch condition. Consequently, although at the beginning different modes are excited using the incident rays with different NAs, the energy will be transferred between different modes and this will establish a steady power distribution. Therefore, the 3-dB bandwidth of 50-m SIPOF is nearly the same. Figure 7 shows the theoretical bandwidths as a function of the incident rays NA at the ber lengths of 5, 20, and 50 m, according to Eq. (1). As mode coupling is neglected in Eq. (1), the NA in Eq. (1) equals to the NA of the incident rays. When the incident rays NA is larger than that of the ber, the NA is computed as the NA of the ber. The marked points in Figure 7 are the measured bandwidths using different incident rays with NA 0.1, 0.25, 0.4, and 0.6 at the ber lengths of 5, 20, and 50 m, respectively. It can be seen that for the 5-m SI-POF, the theoretical bandwidth agrees well with the measured one. This result veries the conclusion that no obvious mode coupling occurs when the ber length is no longer than 5 m. However, for the longer bers of 20

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in each mode and decreases the maximum mode delay, thus increasing the bandwidth of the POFs. As mode coupling is the most important factor affecting the bandwidth of SI-POF, this conclusion is valuable in predicting the bandwidth of the SI-POF.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China under grant no. 20010335037.

REFERENCES 1. K. Ohdoko, T. Ishigure, and Y. Koike, Propagating mode analysis and design of waveguide parameters of GI POF for very short-reach network use, IEEE Photon Technol Lett 17 (2005), 79 81. 2. K. Shimada, H. Sasaki, and Y. Noguchi, The home networking system based on IEEE1394 and Ethernet technologies, ICCE Int Conf Consumer Electron, 2001, pp. 234 235. 3. T. Ishigure, M. Kano, and Y. Koike, Which is a more serious factor to the bandwidth of GI-POF: Differential mode attenuation or mode coupling? J Lightwave Technol 18 (2000), 959 965. 4. G. Jiang, R.F. Shi, and A.F. Garito, Mode coupling and equilibrium mode distribution conditions in plastic optical bers, IEEE Photon Technol Lett 9 (1997), 1128 1130. 5. W. Dai, X.H. Sun, and M.D. Zhang, Research of offset launch of POF and light source, SPIE 4604 (2001), 135142. 6. L. Raddatz, I.H. White, D.G. Cunningham, and M.C. Nowell, An experimental and theoretical study of the offset launch technique for the enhancement of the bandwidth of multimode ber links, J Lightwave Technol 16 (1998), 324 331. 7. S. Takahashi, Experimental studies on launching conditions in evaluating transmission characteristics of POFs, Proc 2nd Int Conf Plastic Optical Fibers Applications (POF93), Hague, The Netherlands, 1993, pp. 83 85. 8. T. Yoshimura, S. Takahashi, and Y. Koyamada, Modal baseband response measuring methods for plastic optical bers, Proc 27th Conf Opt Commun, Amsterdam, 2001, pp. 24 25. 9. S.L. Zheng, X.M. Zhang, and K.S. Chen, Far-eld pattern and differential mode attenuation of POF, Acta Photonica Sinica 32 (2003), 1434 1437. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Figure 7 Theoretical and experimental bandwidths as a function of the incident rays NA at the ber lengths of 5, 20, and 50 m

and 50 m, when the NA of the incident rays is smaller than the measured bers NA, namely, the underlled launching (UFL) condition, the theoretical value is larger than the measured one. When the NA of the incident rays is closer or larger than the measured bers NA, the theoretical value is smaller than the measured one. This is a strange result, as it conicts with the previous study of the mode-coupling effect on the bandwidth. We found that although mode coupling contributes to enhancing the bandwidth of the ber as it averages out the total propagation delays, it has another effect on the bandwidth of SI-POF. The energy transfer between the neighboring modes due to the existing of mode coupling will excite high-order modes during propagation. When in the UFL condition, this effect functions to increase the effective NA of the incident light and will decrease the bandwidth of the ber. The net effect of mode coupling on the bandwidth of SI-POFs under different launch conditions would be the competition of the above two effects. When the incident ray has a small NA, the negative effect exceeds the positive one, resulting in a smaller measured bandwidth than the theoretical one. On the contrary, when the NA of the incident ray equals or exceeds the NA of the POFs, the effect of increasing the bandwidth is predominant, resulting in an enhanced bandwidth for the SI-POF.
4. CONCLUSION

VARIOUS SLOT LOADED BROADBAND AND COMPACT CIRCULAR MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS

Amit A. Deshmukh and Girish Kumar Department of Electrical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay Powai, Mumbai 400 076, India Received 5 September 2005 ABSTRACT: Various suspended broadband and compact circular microstrip antennas using variations of U-slot, V-slot, and a pair of rectangular slots cut either on the periphery or inside the patch are proposed. These antennas have larger bandwidth with a broadside radiation pattern. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 48: 435 439, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.21373 Key words: circular microstrip antenna; semi-circular microstrip antenna; U-slot; V-slot; pair of horizontal slots

The mode coupling of SI-POF has been analyzed by observing the far-eld radiation patterns. The results show that mode coupling starts from 510 m and the equilibrium mode distribution is established at about 30 m. The bandwidths of SI-POF samples were measured as a function of launching the NAs at different ber lengths using the frequency-domain method. The results were compared with the theoretical values, which neglect mode coupling. It was found that mode coupling has two opposite effects on the bandwidth of POFs: (i) new modes are stimulated due to the existence of mode coupling, which means the increase of the effective NA of the POFs; thus, mode coupling decreases the bandwidth, and (ii) the existing mode coupling averages the power

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