In this Letter, we present a high extinction ratio and compact on-chip polarization beam splitter (PBS), based on an extreme skin-depth (eskid) waveguide. Subwavelength-scale gratings form an effectively anisotropic metamaterial cladding and introduce a large birefringence. The anisotropic dielectric perturbation of the metamaterial cladding suppresses the TE polarization extinction via exceptional coupling, while the large birefringence efficiently cross-couples the TM mode, thus reducing the coupling length. We demonstrated the eskid-PBS on a silicon-on-insulator platform and achieved an ultra-high extinction ratio PBS ( for TE and for TM) with a compact coupling length ( ). The insertion loss is also negligible ( ). The bandwidth is (30) nm for the TE (TM) extinction ratio . Our ultra-high extinction ratio PBS is crucial in implementing efficient polarization diversity circuits, especially where a high degree of polarization distinguishability is necessary, such as photonic quantum information processing. 
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                            Demonstration of high-efficiency photonic lantern couplers for PolyOculus
                        
                    
    
            The PolyOculus technology produces large-area-equivalent telescopes by using fiber optics to link modules of multiple semi-autonomous, small, inexpensive, commercial-off-the-shelf telescopes. Crucially, this scalable design has construction costs that are lower than equivalent traditional large-area telescopes. We have developed a novel, to the best of our knowledge, photonic lantern approach for the PolyOculus fiber optic linkages that potentially offers substantial advantages over previously considered free-space optical linkages, including much higher coupling efficiencies. We have carried out the first laboratory tests of a photonic lantern prototype developed for PolyOculus, and demonstrated broadband efficiencies of , confirming the outstanding performance of this technology. 
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                            - Award ID(s):
- 1711230
- PAR ID:
- 10249702
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optical Society of America
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Applied Optics
- Volume:
- 60
- Issue:
- 19
- ISSN:
- 1559-128X; APOPAI
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. D93
- Size(s):
- Article No. D93
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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