title: Photonic lanterns: a study of light propagation in multimode to single-mode converters.
abstract: The "photonic lantern," an optical fibre device that has emerged from the field of astrophotonics, allows for a single-mode photonic function to take place within a multimode fibre. We study and evaluate the modal behaviour of photonic lanterns as well as the conditions for achieving low-loss between a multimode fibre and a "near-diffraction limited" single-mode system. We also present an intuitive analogy of the modal electromagnetic propagation behaviour along the photonic lantern transition in terms of the Kronig-Penney model in Quantum Mechanics.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Photonics and Optical Science, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Australia. S.G.Leon-Saval@usyd.edu.au
authors.forename: Sergio G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Leon-Saval
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Argyros
authors.forename: Joss
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bland-Hawthorn