Modal power decomposition of beam intensity profiles into linearly polarized modes of multimode optical fibers.

We calculate the modal power distribution of a randomly and linearly polarized (LP) multimode beam inside a cylindrical fiber core from knowledge of spatial-intensity profiles of a beam emitted from the fiber. We provide an exact analysis with rigorous proofs that forms the basis for our calculations. The beam from the fiber end is collimated by a spherical lens with a specific focal length. The original LP-mode basis is transformed by the spherical lens and forms another orthogonal basis that describes the free-space beam. By using this basis, we calculate the modal power distribution from the mutual-intensity profile. This is acquired by adopting a well-known mutual-intensity-profile-retrieving technique based on measurements of the intensity patterns several times after two orthogonal cylindrical lenses with varying separation. The feasibility of our decomposition algorithm is demonstrated with simulations.