1 December 1998

. Optics Communications 157 1998 1722

Direct image transmission
through a multi-mode square optical fiber
C.Y. Wu
1
, A.R.D. Somervell, T.H. Barnes
Department of Physics, Uniersity of Auckland, Priate Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
Received 23 March 1998; revised 20 August 1998; accepted 25 August 1998
Abstract
We explore the potential for direct image transmission through a square optical fiber. We show that when an image is
sampled appropriately and its optical Fourier transform imaged on the end of a square fiber with perfectly reflecting walls,
the components in the Fourier transform excite corresponding fiber modes. Specifically, eveneven fiber modes carry
information from one pixel only, while the odd modes carry information from neighboring pixels and give rise to cross-talk.
When the odd modes are suppressed, the image can be perfectly recovered at the end of the fiber by a second optical Fourier
transform. We suggest a method of suppressing the odd modes. In our system, dispersion of the mode phase velocity gives
rise to different arrival times for the information in different image pixels, but has little or no effect on the output intensity
distribution. We show that the square shape of the fiber is critical in forming the output image and confirm our theoretical
predictions by computer simulation. q1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Image transmission; Multimode; Square optical-fiber
1. Introduction
Direct image transmission through multimode optical
fibers has attracted considerable interest over many years.
The main difficulties in this type of image transmission
arise from dispersion of the phase velocity of the fiber
modes and angular ambiguities caused by symmetry when
fibers of circular cross-section are used. Many methods
have been developed to overcome these difficulties and
comprehensive reviews and analysis of the subject, to-
gether with some new developments can be found in Refs.
w x 14 .
It is well known that an image formed in coherent light
on the end of an optical fiber is expanded into a sequence
of normal modes propagating along the fiber. Each mode
has a characteristic amplitude distribution the eigen func-
1
E-mail: cy.wu@auckland.ac.nz
. tion over the cross-section of the fiber. Usually, each
image pixel excites several modes which propagate down
the fiber at different speeds. Also, each mode carries
contributions from several pixels. The image information
is therefore badly corrupted after even only a short trans-
mission distance and some way of equalising the transmis-
sion times for different modes is necessary before the
image can be accurately reconstructed again. This is often
achieved holographically.
Our proposed system works in a different way. We
arrange that each pixel in the image excites one corre-
sponding mode in the fiber, by an optical transformation.
At the output end of the fiber, a second optical transforma-
tion is applied to convert the modes back to single points
of light, the reconstructed pixels. Now, eventhough the
information in different pixels travels at different speeds
down the fiber, we in principle avoid the mixing of
information between pixels that occurs when each pixel
excites several modes as in the conventional system. Al-
0030-4018r98r$ - see front matter q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
. PII: S0030- 4018 98 00477- 5
( ) C.Y. Wu et al.rOptics Communications 157 1998 1722 18
though the pixels arrive at the fiber output at slightly
different times, the image intensity distribution is not
corrupted.
Consider a one-dimensional fiber fed with a one-di-
mensional image. The modes here are sinusoidal functions
with spatial frequencies determined by the size of the fiber
and the optical wavelength. We also know that the Fourier
transform of a pair of delta functions symmetrically dis-
posed about the origin with appropriate signs, is a sinu-
w x soidal function 5 . It is therefore reasonable to expect that
if an image is appropriately sampled and optically Fourier
transformed before being presented to the fiber, we may be
able to relate each pair of symmetrically disposed pixels to
a single propagating mode, and transform that mode back
to a pair of pixels again by a second optical Fourier
transform at the output end of the fiber.
Consideration of this simple model immediately raises
two potential problems. First, each pair of pixels arrives at
a different time because of modal dispersion, and second,
the information in the two pixels of each symmetrical pair
will be mixed together during propagation. The first of
these difficulties is not too severe for ordinary lengths of
fiber where the difference in mode transmission time
would typically be of the order of nano- or micro-seconds,
and the second problem can be overcome by transmitting
only one of the symmetric pairs of pixels i.e. by restricting
the input image to one half of the input field of the first
Fourier transform lens.
The simple one-dimensional model above can be easily
extended to two dimensions with a fiber of rectangular
cross-section, except that now the input image field must
be restricted to a single quadrant of the input plane of the
first Fourier lens. It should be noted that this system will
not work for a round fiber because of the angular ambigu-
ity, i.e. the information in input pixels in each circle
centered on the optic axis of the input Fourier lens will be
mixed as it passes down the fiber. In this paper we
therefore limit our discussion to a transmission system
consisting of a square fiber with two Fourier transform
lenses.
The principle of the optical Fourier transform and its
applications are very well known, and can be found in
w x Refs. 1,6 . The propagation modes of a rectangular wave-
guide with perfectly reflecting walls and those of slab
waveguides have also been thoroughly studied in the litera-
w x ture 712 . The rectangular optical waveguides are widely
w x used in integrated optics applications 8 . Although mathe-
matical difficulties have prevented the exact analysis of
rectangular dielectric waveguides, many valuable approxi-
mations have been developed see, for example Refs.
w x. 810 .
For simplicity, in this paper we restrict ourselves to the
discussion of the ideal case of a rectangular optical fiber
with perfectly reflecting walls. In Section 2 we present a
short theoretical analysis which is then compared with
numerical calculations, and we follow this with a brief
discussion in Section 3.
2. Analysis
The suggested system is sketched in Fig. 1 where L
1
and L are Fourier transform lenses with focal length L ,
4 f
and L and L are lens systems of magnification h. The
2 3
optical fiber has a square cross-section with side size a
and length L, and the cladding is a perfect reflector.
. . E x , y where i s16 represent the electrical field TM
i i i
of the image during different stages of propagation.
For simplicity, we also assume that the fiber can be
regarded as being infinite in length when discussing the
propagation of the light field through the fiber so that
reflection from the far end of the fiber can be ignored. We
will concentrate on the steady state case in this paper with
. the time factor exp yi vt suppressed.
The field inside the fiber can be expressed by using the
w x Greens theorem 11 as
E x, y, z .
< 1 E G x, y, z x , y , z .
0 0 0
sy E x , y dS .
H 0 0 0 0
4p E n
S
0 0 z s0
0
1 .
where dS sd x d y , and n is the outward normal of
0 0 0 0
. Fig. 1. Sketch of the image transmission system consisting of a pair of Fourier lenses L and L , a pair of imaging lens systems L and
1 4 2
. . L , and a perfect reflecting square fiber length L .
3
( ) C.Y. Wu et al.rOptics Communications 157 1998 1722 19
< . the plane z s0. The Greens function G x, y, z x , y , z
0 0 0 0
satisfies the Helmholtz equation,
2 2
< = qk G x, y, z x , y , z . .
1 0 0 0
sy4pd xyx d yyy d zyz , 2 . . . .
0 0 0
and the boundary conditions, Gs0 on the surface, xs
"ar2, ys"ar2, and zs0. Solving the equation gives
< G x, y, z x , y , z .
0 0 0
` `
16p mp np
s sin xqar2 sin yqar2 . .

2
a a a
ms1 ns1
=
mp np 1
sin x qar2 sin y qar2 . .
0 0
a a g
mn
=
sin g z e
ig
mn
z
, zGz .
mn 0 0
3 .
ig z
mn 0
sin g z e , z-z , .
mn 0
where
2 2 2 2 2
( g s k y m qn p ra , 4 . .
mn 1
. k sn vrc ErE n syErE z , and n is the refractive
1 1 0 0 1
index of the fiber material.
The E-field at the front face of the fiber, E , can be
3
found by noting that the lens, L , performs a 2-D Fourier
1
Transform and that this is imaged onto the fiber by L .
2
This results in
br2 br2
E x , y shA E x , y . .
H H 3 3 3 1 1 1
ybr2 ybr2
=
hk
0
exp yi x x qy y d x d y , .
1 3 1 3 1 1
/
L
f
5 .
. . for ybr2F x , y Fbr2, and yar2F x , y Far2,
1 1 3 3
where A is a complex constant multiplied by the factor,

i2 k
0
L
f
. w x yie rl L 1 , and b is the size of the frame of the
0 f
input image, bsha.
Then by using the Greens function we can express the
field at the output of the fiber as
E x , y .
4 4 4
` `
4
ar2 ar2
s E x , y .
H H 3 3 3
2
a yar2 yar2
ms1 ns1
mp np
=sin x qar2 sin y qar2 d x d y . .
3 3 3 3
a a
=
mp np
ig L
mn
sin x qar2 sin y qar2 e , 6 . . .
4 4
a a
and similarly,
ar2 ar2
y1
E x , y sh A E x , y . .
H H 6 6 6 4 4 4
yar2 yar2
=
hk
0
exp yi x x qy y d x d y . .
4 6 4 6 4 4
/
L
f
7 .
. . for yar2F x , y Far2,ybr2F x , y Fbr2.
4 4 6 6
. . We can also combine Eqs. 5 7 to establish a direct
relation between the input and output fields:
2 ` `
4A
br2 br2
E x , y s E x , y . .
H H 6 6 6 1 1 1
2
a ybr2 ybr2
ms1 ns1
=
ig L
mn
F x , y , x , y d x d y e , 8 . .
mn 1 1 6 6 1 1
where
F x , y , x , y .
mn 1 1 6 6
ar2
yi 2p u x
1 3
s sin mp x raq1r2 e d x w x .
H 3 3
yar2
=
ar2
yi 2p y
1 3
sin np y raq1r2 e d y w x .
H 3 3
yar2
=
ar2
yi 2p u x
6 4
sin mp x raq1r2 e d x w x .
H 4 4
yar2
=
ar2
yi2p y
6 4
sin np y raq1r2 e d y , 9 w x . .
H 4 4
yar2
and
hx hy
1 1
u s , s , 10 .
1 1
l L l L
0 f 0 f
hx hy
6 6
u s , s . 11 .
6 6
l L l L
0 f 0 f
. Denoting the four similar integrals involved in Eq. 9 as
I , I , I and I and carrying out the integration we
m1 n1 m6 n
6
have
a
i my1.p r2
I s e sinc mr2ym .
m1 1
2
m
y y1 sinc mr2qm , 12 . . .
1
with similar expressions for the other three terms, if the
input and output images are sampled by
x sm D, y sn D i s1,6 , .
i i i i
l L l L b
0 f 0 f
Ds s s . 13 .
b ha N
. . In above, sinc x 'sin xp rxp.
We now discuss the cases of even and odd numbered
modes separately. For even modes we set ms2m and Eq.
. 12 becomes
ia
. mq1 ev
I s y1 d yd 14 . . .
m1 m, m m,ym
1 1
2
( ) C.Y. Wu et al.rOptics Communications 157 1998 1722 20
ev od
. . . . Fig. 2. DFT of the fiber mode functions for ms5: a I m for an even mode and b I m for an odd mode.
m 1 m 1
while for the odd modes, ms2my1, we have
a
mq1
od
w x I s y1 sinc m ymq1r2 .
m1 1
2
qsinc m qmy1r2 . 15 . . .
1
ev od
I and I as discrete functions of m , for the case ms5
m1 m1 1
. . are shown in Fig. 2 a and 2 b respectively.
This figure confirms our statement in the last section
that each even mode relates to two symmetrically located
pixels at m and ym while each odd mode may relate to
1 1
several neighbuoring pixels. For I , I and I we have
m6 n1 n6
similar expressions. By using these expressions we can
write
F x , y , x , y s I
ev
qI
od
I
ev
qI
od
. . .
mn 1 1 6 6 m1 m1 n1 n1
= I
ev
qI
od
I
ev
qI
od
16 . . .
m6 m6 n6 n6
and
E m , n .
6 6 6
Nr2 Nr2 2 ` `
4A
s E m , n .
1 1 1
2
a
ms1 ns1 m syNr2q1 n syNr2q1
1 1
= I
ev
qI
od
I
ev
qI
od
. .
m1 m1 n1 n1
= I
ev
qI
od
I
ev
qI
od
e
ig
m, n
L
. 17 . . .
m6 m6 n6 n6
In the special cases when both m and n are even and both
are odd we have respectively
E m , n .
6 6 6
Nr2 Nr2 2 2 ` `
a A
s E m , n .
1 1 1
4
ms1 ns1 m syNr2q1 n syNr2q1
1 1
= d yd d yd
. .
m, m m,ym m, m m,ym
1 1 6 6
=
ig L
2 m,2 n
d yd d yd e 18 . . .
n, n n,yn n, n n,yn
1 1 6 6
and
E m , n .
6 6 6
Nr2 Nr2 2 2 ` `
a A
s E m , n .
1 1 1
4
ms1 ns1 m syNr2q1 n syNr2q1
1 1
=
1 1
sinc m ymq qsinc m qmy . .
1 1 2 2
=
1 1
sinc m ymq qsinc m qmy . .
6 6 2 2
=
1 1
sinc n ynq qsinc n qny . .
1 1 2 2
=
1 1
sinc n ynq qsinc n qny . .
6 6 2 2
=
ig L
2 my1,2 ny1
e . 19 .
. Expanding the right-hand side terms in Eq. 18 and
carrying out the summation we can see that carried through
by eveneven modes, ms2m , ns2n , each input pixel
1 1
. E m , n will be seen on the output screen as four
1 1 1
. . . images, E m , n , E ym , n , E m ,yn and
6 1 1 6 1 1 6 1 1
. . E ym ,yn meanwhile each output image E m , n
6 1 1 6 6 6
will be the superposition of the images of four symmetrical
. . . input pixels, E m , n , E ym , n , E m ,yn and
1 6 6 1 6 6 1 6 6
. E ym ,yn with the same phase velocity. This ambigu-
1 6 6
ity can be resolved by restricting the input image inside
. one quadrant as shown in Fig. 3 a . Through this treat-
ment, we will have four unambiguous images in the whole
. output screen as shown in Fig. 3 b which is numerically
. . calculated according to Eqs. 5 7 for a sampling matrix
. of N=N, Ns64. From Eq. 18 it is also expected that if
the effects of the odd numbered modes are suppressed it
should be possible to recover the input image perfectly
. without crosstalk, which is shown in Fig. 3 c when only
the eveneven modes are accounted for. Finally, as a
. comparison we show in Fig. 3 d the output image directly
transmitted through the fiber without using the Fourier
lenses, L and L .
1 4
Now we show that the crosstalk the effect of odd
.. numbered modes as shown in Fig. 3 b can be removed
( ) C.Y. Wu et al.rOptics Communications 157 1998 1722 21
. . . Fig. 3. Numerical calculation of the amplitude of the images: a Imput image; b output image with both even and odd modes included; c
. output image when even modes only are included and d out put image without using the Fourier lenses, L and L .
1 4
theoretically by properly combining the four images in the

ev
output screen. In fact, if we expand the product I q
m6
od
.
ev od
. . I I qI in Eq. 17 referring to the expressions of
m6 n6 n6
I
ev
and I
od
in the form
m1 m1
I
ev
qI
od
I
ev
qI
od
. .
m6 m6 n6 n6
sI
ev
I
ev
qI
ev
I
od
qI
od
I
ev
qI
od
I
od
m6 n6 m6 n6 m6 n6 m6 n6
2
s a r4 y d yd d yd . . .
m, m m,ym n, n n,yn
6 6 6 6
q i d yd sinc n ynq1r2 . .
m, m m,ym 6
6 6
qsinc n qny1r2 q i sinc m ymq1r2 . . .
6 6
qsinc m qmy1r2 d yd . . .
6 n, n n,yn
6 6
q sinc m ymq1r2 qsinc m qmy1r2 . . .
6 6
= sinc n ynq1r2 qsinc n qny1r2 , . . . 4
6 6
20 .
then it is easy to see that
1
E m , n yE ym , n yE m ,yn w . . .
6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 4
qE ym ,yn x .
6 6 6
Nr2 Nr2 2 2 ` `
a A
s E m , n .
1 1 1
4
ms1 ns1 m syNr2q1 n syNr2q1
1 1
= d yd i d yd
. .
m, m m,ym m, m m,ym
1 1 6 6
=
ig L
2 m,2 n
d yd d yd e
. .
n, n n,yn n, n n,yn
1 1 6 6
sa
2
A
2
E m , n e
ig
2 m
6
,2 n
6
L
. 21 . .
1 6 6
This combination can be achieved by changing the phase
. . of E ym , n and E m ,yn by p, and adding the
6 6 6 6 6 6
images interferometrically. This has also been confirmed
numerically by adding up the four terms in the left-hand
. . side of Eq. 21 calculated from Eq. 7 . This leads to an
. output image exactly the same as that shown in Fig. 3 c
except for an increase of the intensity by a factor of 4.
3. Discussion
. 1 When the finite length of the fiber is taken into
. account, the Greens function, Eq. 3 , will be slightly
ig
mn
L
. altered and the factor, e , in Eq. 8 will be replaced
w .
i2g
mn
L
.x
ig
mn
L
correspondingly by 1qR r 1qRe e . Since
. the normal reflection coefficient R amplitude is about
0.2 from the glassrair interface the terms in square brack-
ets have been treated as unity in this analysis. Moreover,
because its influence is restricted to single pixels, it will
not have significant effect on the overall picture.
. 2 Ordinary round section fibers do not have the image
transmission characteristics described above. This is mainly
because of the angular ambiguity or azimuthal uniformity
w x indicated in Ref. 3 as mentioned before. Besides, the
spatial distribution of the zero points of the mode functions
is also different for different modes. This causes additional
crosstalk when a fixed sampling rate is used.
( ) C.Y. Wu et al.rOptics Communications 157 1998 1722 22
. 3 This approach can, in principle, be used for an
imperfect reflecting square fiber as long as it supports
sufficient guided wave modes to carry the pixels.
4. Conclusion
The possibility of direct image transmission through a
perfect reflecting square fiber is demonstrated theoreti-
cally. The key point of the new approach is the introduc-
tion of a pair of Fourier lenses and the use of a square
fiber.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Professor A.C. Kibblewhite and
Professor G.L. Austin, both of the Physics Department,
University of Auckland, for their help and support during
this work. We are also indebted to Dr. S.M. Tan of the
Physics Department, University of Auckland, and Dr. To-
mohiro Shirai, Optical Engineering Division, Mechanical
Engineering Laboratory, Japan, for interesting discussions
and to Dr. D.D. Wu for help with preparation of the
manuscript. Finally, we acknowledge the financial support
from the New Zealand Institute for Industrial Research and
Development.
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