Zeitschrift für elektrische und elektronische Systeme

An Electrically Tunable Liquid Crystal Lens for Fiber Coupling and Variable Optical Attenuation

Abstract

Michael Chen, Chyong-Hua Chen, Yin-Chieh Lai, and Yi-Hsin Lin

An electrically tunable Liquid Crystal (LC) lens for both of fiber coupling and variable optical attenuation is demonstrated. The LC lens modulates the beam waist coupling to the fiber by electrically changing the lens power. When the modulated beam waist is close to the core size of the fiber, the LC lens is operated as a lens coupler. When the beam waist increases by reducing the lens power, the LC lens is operated as a Variable Optical Attenuator (VOA) as a result of the corresponding coupling coefficient variation of the transformed beam into a multimode fiber. The study provides a way to design an optical device for fiber coupling and variable optical attenuation based on electrically tunable focusing optical component.