Investigating the design and characterization of integrated, 3D-printed photonic lantern spatial (de)multiplexers with tailored mode control for advanced quantum photonic circuits

The integration of photonic lantern spatial (de)multiplexers into advanced quantum photoniccircuits holds significant potential for improving mode control and scalability in quantuminformation processing. This study investigates the design, fabrication, and characterization ofintegrated, 3D-printed photonic lanterns with tailored mode control to enable efficient spatialmode (de)multiplexing. By leveraging high-resolution additive manufacturing techniques, weoptimize the structural parameters of photonic lanterns to achieve low-loss mode conversion andenhanced modal purity. The research focuses on the influence of geometrical configurations,refractive index contrast, and coupling efficiency on the overall performance of the devices.Experimental validation is conducted through optical transmission measurements and modeanalysis to assess the feasibility of these structures for quantum photonic applications. Thefindings of this work provide insights into the development of next-generation integratedphotonic systems for quantum communication, computation, and sensing.