Abstract:For an integrated electro-optical sensor, the operating point has a significant effect on the performance of the sensor. In this paper, an optical waveguide electric field sensor with controllable operating point is designed using LiNbO₃ materials, which has an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) structure. Theoretical results show that the optimal operating point can be obtained and controlled by tuning the output wavelength of the tunable laser used in the sensing system. The simulation results show that the sensitivity about 83 dB·μV/m can be obtained, and the linear dynamic range as large as 60 dB can be achieved. And the fabrication tolerance of the center-to-center distance for the 3 dB coupler used in the asymmetric MZI is ～0.5 μm, while the power splitting ratio of the Y branch is with more tolerance.

Abstract:Fiber-optic Fabry-Perot (F-P) sensors are widely investigated because they have several advantages over conventional sensors, such as immunity to electromagnetic interference, ability to operate under bad environments, high sensitivity and the potential for multiplexing. A new method to fabricate micro-cavity Fabry-Perot interferometer is introduced, which is fusion splicing a section of conventional single-mode fiber (SMF) and a section of hollow core or solid core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) together to form a micro-cavity at the splice joint. The technology of fusion splicing is discussed, and two miniature optical fiber sensors based on Fabry-Perot interference using fusion splicing are presented. The two sensors are completely made of fused silica, and have good high-temperature capability.

Abstract:The NAND operation at 250 Gbit/s based on quantum dot-semiconductor optical amplifiers (QD-SOAs) is modeled. By solving the rate equations of SOAs in the form of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), the performance of NAND gate is numerically investigated. The model takes the effects of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and the input pulse energy on the system’s quality factor into account. Results show that NAND gate in QD-SOA-MZI based structure is feasible at 250 Gbit/s with a proper quality factor. The decrease in quality factor is predicted for high spontaneous emission factor (N _SP). For an ideal amplifier (N _SP = 2), the Q-factor is 17.8 for 30 dB gain.

Abstract:A multilevel grating coupler based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material structure is proposed to realize the coupling between waveguide and waveguide or waveguide and fiber. This coupler is compatible with the current fabrication facilities for complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology with vertical coupling. This structure can realize coupling when the beams with transverse electric (TE) polarization and transverse magnetic (TM) polarization are incident at the same time. The influences of the grating coupler parameters including wavelength, the thickness of waveguide layer, the thickness of SiO₂ layer and the number of steps on the TE mode and TM mode coupling efficiencies are discussed. Theory researches and simulation results indicate that the wavelength range is from 1533 nm to 1580 nm when the TE mode and TM mode coupling efficiencies are both more than 40% as the grating period is 0.99 μm. The coupling efficiencies of the incident TE and TM modes are 49.9% and 49.5% at the wavelength of 1565 nm, respectively, and the difference between them is only 0.4%.

Abstract:A high-Q microwave photonic filter using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-based mode-locking fiber ring laser is proposed, analyzed and experimentally demonstrated. The proposed microwave photonic filter can realize a high-Q frequency response, it is compact without an optical source, and it can be easily tuned by adjusting an optical variable delay line in a ring cavity. A result with a Q-factor of about 236 and a rejection ratio of about 45 dB is obtained. The measured results and the theoretical estimations agree very well.

Abstract:A high-precision wavelength controller is presented in this paper. It is necessary to find out the difference between the central wavelength of a tunable fiber Fabry-Perot (FFP) filter and that of the input laser, while the wavelength controller operates at the states of wavelength-scanning and wavelength-locking modes. Firstly, a dynamic simulation model of tunable FFP filter is established, and the dynamic characteristic of tunable FFP filter modulated by an alternating current (AC) signal is simulated. Then the measuring time at wavelength-scanning mode compared with the theory time is discussed, and this time difference shows the difference between the central wavelength of a tunable FFP filter and that of the input laser. At last, the effects on wavelength-locking precision of time delays, including the time delay of opened-loop circuit, the time constant of the closed-loop circuit and the intrinsic hysteresis of piezoelectric (PZT) element, are analyzed. A wavelength controller of tunable FFP filter is designed and prepared. The experimental results at wavelength-locking mode show that a high locking precision is obtained.

Abstract:In order to realize the planar gradient refractive index (GRIN) microlens which is based upon porous silicon (PSi) and fabricated on silicon on insulator (SOI), a novel anodization method is used by applying lateral electric field. The microlens with smooth variation of the effective optical thickness is achieved. The lens is transparent in the infrared region, including the optical communication window (1.3 μm<λ<1.6 μm). This approach also allows the fabrication of an array of such lenses on SOI, and the GRIN microlens can be used as potential components in future silicon-based integrated optical circuits.

Abstract:A tunable negative coefficient band-pass microwave photonic filter (MPF) with improved mainlobe-to-sidelobe suppression ratio (MSSR) by a Sagnac interferometer (SI) is experimentally demonstrated. The negative coefficient characteristic of MPF is achieved by using the phase modulation technology. The central frequency of the band-pass MPF is tunable continuously by changing the wavelength separation of multi-wavelength optical carriers. A 38-tap negative coefficient band-pass MPF whose MSSR is increased by about 6.371 dB is achieved in experiment by apodizing the tap coefficient with the Sagnac interferometer.

Abstract:We fabricate polycrystalline Cu(In, Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) film solar cells on polyimide (PI) substrate at temperature of 450 °C with single-stage process, and obtain a poor crystallization of CIGS films with several secondary phases in it. For improving it further, the two-stage process is adopted instead of the single-stage one. An extra Cu-rich CIGS layer with the thickness from 100 nm to 200 nm is grown on the substrate, and then another Cu-poor CIGS film with thickness of 1.5–2.0 μm is deposited on it. With the modification of the evaporation process, the grain size of absorber layer is increased, and the additional secondary phases almost disappear. Accordingly, the overall device performance is improved, and the conversion efficiency is enhanced by about 20%.

Abstract:We report the deposition of Nb₂O₅ films on unheated BK-7 glass substrates using remote plasma sputtering system. The remote plasma geometry allows pseudo separation of plasma and target bias parameters, which offers complete deposition rate control. Using appropriate oxygen flow rates, high-density and low-loss Nb₂O₅ films are deposited with rates up to 0.49 nm/s. Lower deposition rates (～0.026 nm/s) can also be obtained by working at low target current and voltage and at low pressure. Nb₂O₅ films deposited at different rates have the refractive index of about 2.3 and the extinction coefficient as low as 6.9×10^?5.

Abstract:A novel single-polarization single-mode photonic crystal fiber (SPSM-PCF) with circular and elliptical air-holes is proposed. The characteristics of the proposed SPSM-PCF are investigated by using a full-vector finite element method (FEM) with perfect matched layer (PML) boundary conditions. The results show that the SPSM operation is achieved with wider band, and the total dispersion profile of the SPSM-PCF is dispersion-flattened from 1.193 μm to 1.384 μm. This dispersion property makes the proposed SPSM-PCF useful for various applications, such as optical transmission and dispersion compensation for conventional fiber at long wavelength band with 500 nm negative dispersion region. It indicates that this is a good solution to realize broadband SPSM operation.

Abstract:In this paper, a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission system derived from the coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) with polarization division multiplexing (PDM) and 16-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is studied. A simulation of 80-channel WDM transmission system with data rate of 200 Gbit/s is built, and the transmission performance of the system is analyzed. The simulation results show that the system Q value of the WDM channels at 16 Tbit/s with a spectral efficiency of 7.14 bit/s/Hz is potentially over 10.0 dB for a long haul transmission up to 1800 km in a standard single-mode fiber.

Abstract:A high-polarization dual-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with mixing air holes is designed. The full-vector finite element method and coupled-mode theory are used to investigate the birefringence, coupling length, dispersion characteristics, normalized power and extinction ratio of this fiber. Numerical investigations demonstrate that by changing the structural parameters of the fiber, the birefringence is up to 1.48×10^?2 at 1.55 μm, the coupling lengths are 79 μm and 94 μm for x-polarized and y-polarized modes, the fiber has two zero dispersion points, and the dispersion is very flat at the ultra-wide waveband scope from 0.7 μm to 1.7 μm.

Abstract:A novel scheme employing low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes in atmospheric optical communication system is proposed. We deploy coherent detection at the receiving side in the proposed scheme. To reduce bit error rate (BER) and enhance the system performance, LDPC codes are exploited and coherent receiver is used to improve the receiving sensitivity. Experiments are implemented to evaluate the performance of the transmission system. The atmospheric channel attenuations are set to 20–30 dB/km. The coherent detection with LDPC codes can reduce the received power requirement by ～4 dBm at the BER of 10^?9.

Abstract:A novel architecture for the colorless optical network unit (ONU) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated with direct-detection optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DDO-OFDM). In this architecture, polarization-division multiplexing is used to reduce the cost at ONU. In optical line terminal (OLT), quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) intensity-modulated OFDM signal with x-polarization at 10 Gbit/s is transmitted as downstream. At each ONU, the optical OFDM signal is demodulated with direct detection, and γ-polarization signal is modulated for upstream on-off keying (OOK) data at 5 Gbit/s. Simulation results show that the power penalty is negligible for both optical OFDM downstream and the on-off keying upstream signals after over 50 km single-mode fiber (SMF) transmission.

Abstract:A high-efficiency capillary-fiber optic probe is developed for measuring the concentration of trace elements. The optimal probe consists of an excitation fiber (incident fiber) and a ring of collection fibers which is made up of 6 fibers. Both simulation and experiment results show that the structure gives the higher coupling efficiency with a reasonable capillary diameter. The coupling efficiency of the probe is determined by the number and arrangement of the fibers, internal diameter and length of the fiber optic sensing probe, and the end reflectivity of the capillary. The concentration of the carbonic anhydrase solution and dezincification reagents also affect the efficiency. A fluorescence efficiency of 2.4% is obtained in zinc detection experiment.

Abstract:A calibration method for the five essential parameters is proposed. Using the calibration results, the three dimensional (3D) reconstruction can be performed directly. The five essential parameters include the distance between the camera and the projector, the distance between the reference plane and the camera, the fundamental frequency of the fringe pattern, the scale factor from the image coordinates to the world coordinate system in X axis direction and that in Y axis direction. The proposed calibration method is implemented and tested in our 3D reconstruction system. The mean calibration error is found to be 0.0215 mm over a volume of 400 mm (H)×300 mm (V)×500 mm (D). The proposed calibration method is accurate and useful for the 3D reconstruction system.

Abstract:The reflection and transmission properties of plane waves on the interface of uniaxial chiral media with the optical axis parallel to the interface are investigated. The formulas of the reflected and transmitted power are derived. The curves of the group refractive angles, power of the reflected and transmitted waves for TE and TM incident waves are presented for three cases of dielectric constant combinations and for non-chiral, weak chiral and strong chiral media. Some new results are obtained, which are different from those in the uniaxial chiral media with the optical axis perpendicular to the interface.

Abstract:The characteristics of photonic nanojets are analyzed by changing the parameters, such as the wavelength, refractive index of the surroundings, diameter and refractive index of the microsphere, in this paper. Quadratic functions are used to describe the relation between the above parameters and photonic nanojets’ characteristics. Several techniques are proposed to control the photonic nanojets.

Abstract:It is considered that three identical two-level atoms are separately trapped in three coupled single-mode optical cavities, and each atom resonantly interacts with cavity via a one-photon transition. The tripartite entanglement dynamics among atoms is studied. The influence of cavity-cavity coupling constant on the tripartite entanglement among atoms is discussed. The results obtained using the numerical method show that the tripartite entanglement among atoms has a nonlinear relation with the cavity-cavity coupling coefficient. On the other hand, the three-body entanglement is the result of the coherent superposition of the two-body entanglements.