New 1/spl times/N fiber coupler employing diffractive optical element

Summary form only given. Cost-effective broadband 1/spl times/N fiber couplers find important application in different fiberoptic distribution networks and fiber-to-the-home applications. Advanced fusion techniques were developed for 1/spl times/N fiber coupler fabrication. However, these require complicated fiber pre-treatments and have a limit of number N. In the paper, we present a new 1/spl times/N fiber coupler using a diffractive optical element (DOE) that has advantages for large N with low cost and broad /spl lambda/-range. The demonstrated 1/spl times/8 fiber coupler has a low PDL of /spl les/0.1 dB, an excess loss of /spl les/2.4 dB and good uniformity of /spl plusmn/0.25 dB in a broad wavelength range from 1510 nm to 1570 nm.