Test of photonic crystal fiber in broadband interferometry.
Photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) are microstructured waveguides that are used in metrology, nonlinear optics, and coherent tomography. PCF studies are focused mainly on the improvement of dispersion properties and wide spectral single-mode operating domains. Consequently, in the astronomical context this kind of fiber is a good candidate for use in the design of a fiber-linked version of a stellar interferometer for aperture synthesis. We discuss the potential of these fibers to take advantage of wide spectral single-mode operation. We propose an experimental setup that acts as a two-beam interferometer that uses PCFs to measure fringe contrast at four wavelengths (670, 980, 1328, and 1543 nm), which correspond to the R, I, J, and H astronomical bands, respectively, with the same couple of PCFs. For this purpose we use, for the first time to our knowledge, a piezoelectric PCF optical path modulator.
Vergnole
Sébastien
S
Institut de Recherches en Communications Optiques et Microondes, Unité Mixte de Recherche 6615, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 123 Avenue A. Thomas, 87 060 Limoges, France. sebastien.vergnole@ircom.unilim.fr
Delage
Laurent
L
Reynaud
François
F
Labonté
Laurent
L
Roy
Philippe
P
Mélin
Gilles
G
Gasca
Laurent
L