Spatio-temporal multiplexing based on multi-core fiber

Summary form only given. Switching of light between temporal and spatial domains have a range of applications from telecommunications to coherent pulse combining. For instance, in laser applications in manufacturing and high-definition design of complex properties in materials, the surface of the treated metal product is exposed to a sequence of high-power optical pulses with certain period in time, where each pulse is focused onto some spatial point in the product surface. Various schemes of linear beam/pulse combining are used to generate a high power optical beams [1]. An important requirement in coherent beam combining is the precise phase control of the input beams to maintain the output pulse coherence. Previously, we have demonstrated the possibility of using nonlinear effects in multi-core fibers (MCF) for the combining and compression of optical pulses [2]. It was observed that in the MCF based approach, the requirements on the phase control can be weakened. Unlike conventional optical switch schemes [3], here we vary the input signal parameters, while the characteristics of the fiber remain fixed.In this paper, we demonstrate the design rules for nonlinear combining of high-power optical pulses at consequently selected core of MCF with two-dimensional circle arrangement of the cores, slightly resembling a pan magazine in the machine gun, in a sense that pulses appear one by one in the consecutive cores. The considered device makes multiplexing between temporal position of pulses into spatial domain. While it has been shown in previous studies the pulse combining in the central core [3], here we show when it is possible to effectively combine the optical pulses in any core by adjusting the parameters of the input pulses.