This review presents an overview of “Lab on Fiber” technologies and devices with special focus on the design and development of advanced fiber optic nanoprobes for biological applications. Depending on the specific location where functional materials at micro and nanoscale are integrated, “Lab on Fiber Technology” is classified into three main paradigms: Lab on Tip (where functional materials are integrated onto the optical fiber tip), Lab around Fiber (where functional materials are integrated on the outer surface of optical fibers), and Lab in Fiber (where functional materials are integrated within the holey structure of specialty optical fibers). This work reviews the strategies, the main achievements and related devices developed in the “Lab on Fiber” roadmap, discussing perspectives and challenges that lie ahead, with special focus on biological sensing applications.
All‐optical signal processing on nonlinear photonic chips is a burgeoning field. These processes include light generation, optical regeneration and pulse metrology. Nonlinear photonic chips offer the benefits of small footprints, significantly larger nonlinear parameters and flexibility in generating dispersion. The nonlinear compression of optical pulses relies on a delicate balance of a material's nonlinearity and optical dispersion. Recent developments in dispersion engineering on a chip are proving to be key enablers of high‐efficiency integrated optical pulse compression. We review the recent advances made in optical pulse compression based on nonlinear photonic chips, as well as the future outlook and challenges that remain to be solved.
Detecting the optical vortices of darkness hidden in an ultra‐weak background is a difficult task. Here we report an experiment demonstrating that the optical vortices can be directly visualized and identified with a smaller number of photons. Our method is based on the extension of the spiral phase contrast technique to incorporate vortex phase plates (VPP) of high‐order topological charges. In our experiment, we prepare optical vortex arrays of interesting structures such as Arabic numerals and the wings carrying various topological charges. By placing various VPP filters in the Fourier plane of a 4f imaging system, the embedded vortices of an incident ultra‐weak light field can be visualized, revealing both their positions and topological charges. It is found that a higher order vortex generally requires a smaller number of photons to be detected. Our method may find potential application in the fields of astronomical optics and biosensing in an ultra‐weak light environment.
We uncover that the breaking point of the ‐symmetry in optical waveguide arrays has a dramatic impact on light localization induced by the off‐diagonal disorder. Specifically, when the gain/loss control parameter approaches a critical value at which ‐symmetry breaking occurs, a fast growth of the coupling between neighboring waveguides causes diffraction to dominate to an extent that light localization is strongly suppressed and the statistically averaged width of the output pattern substantially increases. Beyond the symmetry‐breaking point localization is gradually restored, although in this regime the power of localized modes grows upon propagation. The strength of localization monotonically increases with disorder at both broken and unbroken ‐symmetry. Our findings are supported by statistical analysis of parameters of stationary eigenmodes of disordered‐symmetric waveguide arrays and by analysis of dynamical evolution of single‐site excitations in such structures.
Microresonator‐based Kerr frequency comb (microcomb) generation can potentially revolutionize a variety of applications ranging from telecommunications to optical frequency synthesis. However, phase‐locked microcombs have generally had low conversion efficiency limited to a few percent. Here we report experimental results that achieve conversion efficiency ( on‐chip comb power excluding the pump) in the fiber telecommunication band with broadband mode‐locked dark‐pulse combs. We present a general analysis on the efficiency which is applicable to any phase‐locked microcomb state. The effective coupling condition for the pump as well as the duty cycle of localized time‐domain structures play a key role in determining the conversion efficiency. Our observation of high efficiency comb states is relevant for applications such as optical communications which require high power per comb line.
Branched photonic structures have served as paramount important components for nanophotonic integration and circuitry. However, these structures are generally constructed with photonic and plasmonic nanowires, which are nonbiomaterials and often need to be specially engineered to interface with cells and biological system. For bionanophotonics, photonic components assembled with self‐adaptive biomaterials are highly desirable to be directly interfaced with the dynamic biological system. In this work, branched structures for bionanophotonics assembled with natural living biomaterials, i.e., nanorod‐shaped Escherichia coli bacteria are reported. The E. coli cells were orderly trapped using a specially desired tapered optical fiber, forming structures with different branches and lengths. Light‐propagation performances along these branched structures were investigated, and the robustness property of the structures were demonstrated. The results show that the bacteria‐based branched structures provide different promising self‐sustainable and evolvable components, such as multidirectional waveguides and beam splitters, for bionanophotonics by connecting the biological and optical worlds with a seamless interface.
The coupling of atomic and photonic resonances serves as an important tool for enhancing light‐matter interactions and enables the observation of multitude of fascinating and fundamental phenomena. Here, by exploiting the platform of atomic‐cladding wave guides, the resonant coupling of rubidium vapor and an atomic cladding micro ring resonator is experimentally demonstrated. Specifically, cavity‐atom coupling in the form of Fano resonances having a distinct dependency on the relative frequency detuning between the photonic and the atomic resonances is observed. Moreover, significant enhancement of the efficiency of all optical switching in the V‐type pump‐probe scheme is demonstrated. The coupled system of micro‐ring resonator and atomic vapor is a promising building block for a variety of light vapor experiments, as it offers a very small footprint, high degree of integration and extremely strong confinement of light and vapor. As such it may be used for important applications, such as all optical switching, dispersion engineering (e.g. slow and fast light) and metrology, as well as for the observation of important effects such as strong coupling, and Purcell enhancement.
Abstract The potential of GaAs‐based photonic crystals for fast all‐optical switching in the telecom spectral range is exploited by controlling the surface recombination and, thereby, the carrier relaxation dynamics. The structure is entirely coated with a layer of aluminium oxide using atomic layer deposition. This results in a carrier lifetime of about 10 ps, as determined by spectrally resolved pump–probe measurements. We show that the nonlinear response of the resonator is optimized when it is excited with a few‐picoseconds pulse. This dynamics is perfectly captured by our model accounting for the carrier diffusion with an impulse response function. Moreover, the suppression of photo‐induced oxidation is revealed to be crucial to demonstrate all‐optical operation at GHz rates with average coupled pump power of 0.5 mW (hence 100 fJ/bit). The switching window is 12 ps wide (1/e), as resolved by homodyne pump–probe measurements. The devices respond to a sequence of closely spaced pump pulses demonstrating a gating window close to 10 ps, with a contrast as high as 7 dB.
One of the challenges of the modern photonics is to develop all‐optical devices enabling increased speed and energy efficiency for transmitting and processing information on an optical chip. It is believed that the recently suggested Parity‐Time (PT) symmetric photonic systems with alternating regions of gain and loss can bring novel functionalities. In such systems, losses are as important as gain and, depending on the structural parameters, gain compensates losses. Generally, PT systems demonstrate nontrivial non‐conservative wave interactions and phase transitions, which can be employed for signal filtering and switching, opening new prospects for active control of light. In this review, we discuss a broad range of problems involving nonlinear PT‐symmetric photonic systems with an intensity‐dependent refractive index. Nonlinearity in such PT symmetric systems provides a basis for many effects such as the formation of localized modes, nonlinearly‐induced PT‐symmetry breaking, and all‐optical switching. Nonlinear PT‐symmetric systems can serve as powerful building blocks for the development of novel photonic devices targeting an active light control.
In this work, we report optomechanical coupling, resolved sidebands and phonon lasing in a solid‐core microbottle resonator fabricated on a single mode optical fiber. Mechanical modes with quality factors (Qm) as high as 1.57 × 104 and 1.45 × 104 were observed, respectively, at the mechanical frequencies and . The maximum Hz is close to the theoretical lower bound of 6 × 1012 Hz needed to overcome thermal decoherence for resolved‐sideband cooling of mechanical motion at room temperature, suggesting microbottle resonators as a possible platform for this endeavor. In addition to optomechanical effects, scatter‐induced mode splitting and ringing phenomena, which are typical for high‐quality optical resonances, were also observed in a microbottle resonator.
The so‐called ‘flat optics’ that shape the amplitude and phase of light with high spatial resolution are presently receiving considerable attention. Numerous journal publications seemingly offer hope for great promises for ultra‐flat metalenses with high efficiency, high numerical aperture, broadband operation… We temperate the expectation by referring to the current status of metalenses against their historical background, assessing the technical and scientific challenges recently solved and critically identifying those that still stand in the way.
The interaction of light with nanostructured materials provides exciting new opportunities for investigating classical wave analogies of quantum phenomena. A topic of particular interest forms the interplay between wave physics and chaos in systems where a small perturbation can drive the behavior from the classical to chaotic regime. Here, we report an all‐optical laser‐driven transition from order to chaos in integrated chips on a silicon photonics platform. A square photonic crystal microcavity at telecom wavelengths is tuned from an ordered into a chaotic regime through a perturbation induced by ultrafast laser pulses in the ultraviolet range. The chaotic dynamics of weak probe pulses in the near infrared is characterized for different pump‐probe delay times and at various positions in the cavity, with high spatial accuracy. Our experimental analysis, confirmed by numerical modelling based on random matrices, demonstrates that nonlinear optics can be used to control reversibly the chaotic behavior of light in optical resonators.
In recent years, optical vortex beams possessing orbital angular momentum have received much attention due to their potential for high‐capacity optical communications. This capability arises from the unbounded topological charges of orbital angular momentum (OAM) that provide infinite freedoms for encoding information. The two most common approaches for generating vortex beams are through fork diffraction gratings and spiral phase plates. While realization of conventional spiral phase plate requires complicated 3D fabrication, the emerging field of metasurfaces has provided a planar and facile solution for generating vortex beams of arbitrary orbit angular momentum. Among various types of metasurfaces, the geometric phase metasurface has shown great potential for robust control of light‐ and spin‐controlled wave propagation. Here, we realize a novel type of geometric metasurface fork grating that seamlessly combine the functionality of a metasurface phase plate for vortex‐beam generation, and that of a linear phase gradient metasurface for controlling the wave‐propagation direction. The metasurface fork grating is therefore capable of simultaneously controlling both the spin and the orbital angular momentum of light.
Teleportation describes the transmission of information without transport of neither matter nor energy. For many years, however, it has been implicitly assumed that this scheme is of inherently nonlocal nature, and therefore exclusive to quantum systems. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that the concept of teleportation can be readily generalized beyond the quantum realm. We present an optical implementation of the teleportation protocol solely based on classical entanglement between spatial and modal degrees of freedom, entirely independent of nonlocality. Our findings could enable novel methods for distributing information between different transmission channels and may provide the means to leverage the advantages of both quantum and classical systems to create a robust hybrid communication infrastructure.
We investigate the fractional Schrödinger equation with a periodic ‐symmetric potential. In the inverse space, the problem transfers into a first‐order nonlocal frequency‐delay partial differential equation. We show that at a critical point, the band structure becomes linear and symmetric in the one‐dimensional case, which results in a nondiffracting propagation and conical diffraction of input beams. If only one channel in the periodic potential is excited, adjacent channels become uniformly excited along the propagation direction, which can be used to generate laser beams of high power and narrow width. In the two‐dimensional case, there appears conical diffraction that depends on the competition between the fractional Laplacian operator and the ‐symmetric potential. This investigation may find applications in novel on‐chip optical devices.
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) have sparked enormous interest on nanophotonics beyond the diffraction limit for their remarkable capabilities of subwavelength confinements and strong enhancements. Due to the inherent polarization sensitivity of the SPPs [transverse‐magnetic (TM) polarization], it is a great challenge to couple the s‐polarized free‐space light to the SPPs. Here, an ultrasmall defect aperture (<λ2/2) is designed to directionally couple both the p‐ and s‐polarized incident beams to the single SPP mode in a broad bandwidth, which is guided by a subwavelength plasmonic waveguide. Simulations show that hot spots emerge at the sharp corners of the defect aperture when the incident beams illuminate it from the back side. The strong radiative fields from the hot spots are directionally coupled to the SPP mode because of the symmetry breaking of the defect aperture. By adjusting the structural parameters, both the unidirectional and bidirectional SPP coupling from the two orthogonal linear‐polarization incident beams are experimentally demonstrated. The polarization‐free coupling of the SPPs is of importance in circuits for fully optical processing of information with a deep‐subwavelength footprint.
Optical waveguide theory is an established part of optical physics. Yet only recently have fundamental phenomena such as spatial eigenmodes and principal modes been demonstrated experimentally. This work leverages recently developed techniques enabling detailed spatiotemporal characterisation of multimode fibre to provide new insights into the fundamentals of fibre propagation. This paper presents detailed analysis of all 420 of a fibre's principal modes and spatial eigenmodes and compares the similarity and differences between these two phenomena. It was found that even over very short lengths, the principal modes can not only significantly suppress modal dispersion but are also a more physically meaningful basis than spatial eigenmodes.
We report on the realisation of ultra‐small‐mode‐volume tunable dye lasers based on hemispherical open microcavities. The cavity mode volume is of the order of cubic micrometers, such that self‐diffusion of the dye molecules allows continuous wave operation over several minutes without the need for driven circulation. Such micro lasers could be integrated into lab‐on‐a‐chip devices. A rate‐equation model that incorporates the diffusion mechanism is used to predict the effect of the microcavity parameters on the lasing threshold.
The design of micro‐optical resonator arrays are introduced and tailored towards refractive index sensing applications, building on the previously unexplored benefits of open dielectric stacks. The resonant coupling of identical hollow cavities present strong and narrow spectral resonance bands beyond that available with a single Fabry Perot interferometer. Femtosecond laser irradiation with selective chemical etching is applied to precisely fabricate stacked and waveguide‐coupled open resonators into fused silica, taking advantage of small 12 nm rms surface roughness made available by the self‐alignment of nanograting planes. Refractive index sensing of methanol‐water solutions confirm a very attractive sensing resolution of 6.5 × 10−5 RIU. Such high finesse optical elements open a new realm of optofluidic sensing and integrated optical circuit concepts for detecting minute changes in sample properties against a control solution that may find importance in chemical and biological sensors, telecom sensing networks, biomedical probes, and low‐cost health care products.
We report a study of the determination of polymer cross‐linking, namely the degree of conversion and refractive index of the microstructures created by two‐photon polymerization (TPP). The influence of TPP processing parameters such as laser intensity and scanning velocity is investigated. The degree of conversion is analyzed via Raman microspectroscopy and the refractive index is measured with the interferometric technique employing a Michelson interferometer. Moreover, the relationship between these two properties is revealed and details are discussed. The largest refractive index change that we have obtained is of the order of 10−2. Finally, we propose and demonstrate experimentally the realization of the gradient‐index (GRIN) structure, resulting from a laser‐induced local refractive index modification due to monomer cross‐linking, i.e. degree of conversion. This work implies that the TPP technique is a valuable tool for the fabrication of GRIN microoptics for (in)homogeneous molding of light flow at the micrometer scale.
