Fiber mode excitation using phase-only spatial light modulation: Guideline on free-space path design and lossless optimization

Phase-only spatial light modulators allow to reshape a Gaussian beam by imposing a given phase distribution along the beam cross section. This technique is widely used in the context of mode-division multiplexing to produce, after propagation through a free-space path, the field designed to excite a given fiber mode. In case of orbital angular momentum modes, the target field is approximated as circularly polarized and several complex algorithms have been developed to increase the purity of the obtained modes. Besides their complexity, those algorithms often exploit higher-order diffraction and spatial filtering, hence entailing power loss. In the theoretical work described here, the mode purity is increased in a simple and efficient way by improving the mode approximation adopted to obtain circularly polarized modes and by optimizing two free parameters in the setup, as demonstrated through pertinent simulations.