Limits of Coupling Efficiency Into Hollow-Core Antiresonant Fibres

We theoretically explore the fundamental limits on the efficiency of coupling light into hollow-core antiresonant fibres. We study in particular the coupling of a free-space Gaussian beam to the guided modes of one of the most successful antiresonant fibre (ARF) geometries, the nested antiresonant nodeless fibre (NANF). Through finite element simulations, we study the effect of the geometrical parameters of the fibre on the coupling efficiency, showing that coupling into the fundamental LP $_{01}$ -like mode is typically maximized around 96–98% when the incident beam waist is about 70% of the core diameter. We find that due to the nature of antiresonance guidance, higher coupling efficiencies are achieved for fibres operating in the second antiresonant window (or generally even-numbered windows) than in those operating in the fundamental antiresonant window (or generally odd numbered windows), although the difference between even and odd decreases with the order of the window. We verify this theoretical finding experimentally with precise measurements of coupling efficiency into two NANFs operating in first and second windows, respectively. Our results which consistently show a steady 1.4 percentage point higher coupling efficiency for the second window fibre imply that such fibers may be the most suitable candidates for applications such as laser delivery which require up to a few hundred meters of fiber.