Large-range liquid level sensor based on an optical fibre extrinsic Fabry–Perot interferometer

We propose an efficient approach to develop large-range liquid level sensors based on an extrinsic Fabry–Perot optical fibre interferometer with an all fused-silica structure and CO₂ laser heating fusion bonding technology. The sensor exhibits signatures of a high sensitivity of 5.3 nm/kPa (36.6 nm/psi), a resolution of 6.8 Pa (9.9×10⁻⁴ psi) and an extreme low temperature dependence of 0.013 nm/°C. As a result, a high resolution of the water level measurement of approximately 0.7 mm on the length scale of 5 m and small errors of the water pressure measurement induced by the temperature dependence within 0.0025 kPa/°C (0.00036 psi/°C, water level 0.25 mm/°C) are achieved, thus providing useful applications for the detection of the large-range liquid level in harsh environments.     

Simple air-gap fiber Fabry–Perot interferometers based on a fiber endface with Sn-microsphere overlay

This study presents a simple, cost-effective and sensitive air-gap fiber Fabry–Perot interferometer (AG-PPFI) which is based on a metal Tin (Sn)-overlaying fiber technique. An extremely small drop of metallic Sn was heated and then melted to shrink into a microsphere owing to the cohesion of the material. When a fiber was inserted into the melting Sn microsphere, an air gap was naturally formed between the fiber endface and the metal Sn during the cooling process. By carefully controlling the reaction time, various air-gaps can be formed as the Fabry–Perot interferometric cavities for the proposed AG-PPFIs. Measurements reveal that a smaller length of air-gap and heavier mass of Sn-microsphere are associated with higher sensitivity of temperature, but the former is dominated. A best temperature sensitivity of wavelength shift with +4.3 nm/°C is achieved when the air-gap is about 5 μm with mass of Sn-microsphere of about 10 μg. The variation of the wavelength shift is equivalent to sensitivity for a change in the cavity length of +14.83 nm/°C.     

Temperature self-compensation fiber-optic pressure sensor based on fiber Bragg grating and Fabry–Perot interference multiplexing

A high performance multiplexed fiber-optic sensor consisted of diaphragm-based extrinsic Fabry–Perot interferometer (DEFPI) and fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is proposed. The novel structure DEFPI fabricated with laser heating fusion technique possesses high sensitivity with 5.35 nm/kPa (36.89 nm/psi) and exhibits ultra-low temperature dependence with 0.015 nm/°C. But the ultra-low temperature dependence still results in small pressure measurement error of the DEFPI (0.0028 kPa/°C). The designed stainless epoxy-free packaging structure guarantees the FBG to be only sensitive to temperature. The temperature information is created to calibrate the DEFPI's pressure measurement error induced by the temperature dependence, realizing effectively temperature self-compensation of the multiplexed sensor. The sensitivity of the FBG is 10.5 pm/°C. In addition, the multiplexed sensor is also very easy to realize the pressure and the temperature high-precise high-sensitive simultaneous measurement at single point in many harsh environmental areas.     

A high-finesse fiber optic Fabry–Perot interferometer based magnetic-field sensor

A high-finesse extrinsic Fabry–Perot interferometric sensor for the measurement of weak dc magnetic fields is demonstrated. The Fabry–Perot cavity is formed by aligning the fiber end-face and the TbDyFe rod end-face, and each end-face is coated by a mirror with a micro-lens. The length of the TbDyFe rod is changed by the variation of an applied dc magnetic field, leading a change of the Fabry–Perot cavity length. By interrogating the white-light interferometric spectrum, the wavelength of the resonant peak is tracked and the length of the Fabry–Perot cavity is obtained. The sensor exhibits a high sensitivity of 1510 nm/mT with a magnetic resolution of 25 nT.     

A novel Si-based photodetector with flat-top and steep-edge spectral response

To meet the requirement of the dense wavelength-division-multiplexed (DWDM) system and optoelectronic integrated circuit, we design a Si-Based InGaAs photodetector, which is fabricated by bonding InGaAs/InP photodetector on a Si-Based dielectric film Fabry–Perot filter. The photodetector can exhibit an extremely good flat-top and steep-edge spectral response through designing the structure of Si-Based dielectric film Fabry–Perot filter. The simulation result of phtodetector demonstrates that the spectral response linewidth, ?at-top and steep-edge characteristics of these photodetectors are suitable to be used in 50 GHz, 100 GHz, 200 GHz DWDM system.     

Effect of temperature and injection current on characteristics of TO-CAN packaged Fabry–Perot laser diode

We fabricated and investigated the thermal characteristics of TO-CAN (transistor-outline-can) packaged long wavelength GaInAsP/InP Fabry–Perot laser diode. Characteristic temperature of 55 K and peak wavelength shift of 0.4 nm/°C depending on the temperatures were obtained. Furthermore, overheating of semiconductor laser originated from thermal resistance is analyzed and evaluated by measuring junction temperature. Results from experiment and estimation are compared at extreme operating conditions in which show agreement within 1 °C.     

Improving the characteristics of the modulation response for fiber Bragg grating Fabry–Perot lasers by optimizing model parameters

A unified and comprehensive study on the small-signal intensity and frequency modulation characteristics of a fiber Bragg grating Fabry–Perot (FBG–FP) laser are numerically investigated. The effect of injection current, temperature, external optical feedback (OFB), nonlinear gain compression factor, fiber grating (FG) parameters and spontaneous emission factor on modulation response characteristics are presented. The rate equations of the laser model are presented in the form that the effect of temperature (T) and external optical feedback (OFB) are included. The temperature dependence (TD) of laser response is calculated according to the TD of laser cavity parameters instead of directly using the well-known Parkove equation. It is shown that the optimum external fiber length (L_ext) is 3.1 cm and the optimum range of working temperature for FGFP laser is within ±2 °C from the FBG reference temperature (T_o). Also, the antireflection (AR) coating reflectivity and the linewidth enhancement factor have no significant effect on the modulation spectra. It is also show that modulation response is extremely sensitive to the OFB level, high injection current and gain compression factor. The study indicates clearly that good dynamic characteristic can be obtained by system parameters optimization.     

Photovoltaic properties of black silicon microstructured by femtosecond pulsed laser

Prototype devices based on black silicon have been fabricated by microstructuring 250 μm thick multicrystalline n doped silicon wafers using femtosecond pulsed laser in ambient gas of SF₆ to measure its photovoltaic properties. The enhanced optical absorption of black silicon extends across the visible region and all the black silicons prepared in this work exhibit enhanced optical absorption close to 90% from 300 nm to 800 nm. The highest open-circuit voltage (V_oc) and short-circuit current (I_sc) under the illumination of He–Ne continuous laser at 632.8 nm were measured to be 53.3 mV and 0.11 mA, respectively at a maximum power conversion efficiency of 1.44%. Upon excitation with He–Ne continuous laser at 632.8 nm, external quantum efficiency (EQE) of black silicon as high as 112.9% has also been observed. Development of black silicon for photovoltaic purposes could open up a new perspective in achieving high efficient silicon-based solar cell by means of the enhanced optical absorption in the visible region. The current–voltage characteristic and photo responsivity of these prototype devices fabricated with microstructured silicon were also investigated.     

Ablation depth control with 40 nm resolution on ITO thin films using a square,flat top beam shaped femtosecond NIR laser

We reported on the ablation depth control with a resolution of 40 nm on indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film using a square beam shaped femtosecond (190 fs) laser (λ_p=1030 nm). A slit is used to make the square, flat top beam shaped from the Gaussian spatial profile of the femtosecond laser. An ablation depth of 40 nm was obtained using the single pulse irradiation at a peak intensity of 2.8 TW/cm². The morphologies of the ablated area were characterized using an optical microscope, atomic force microscope (AFM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Ablations with square and rectangular types with various sizes were demonstrated on ITO thin film using slits with varying x–y axes. The stereo structure of the ablation with the depth resolution of approximately 40 nm was also fabricated successfully using the irradiation of single pulses with different shaped sizes of femtosecond laser.     

A review of visible-range Fabry–Perot microspectrometers in silicon for the industry

This review presents microspectrometers in silicon for the industry for measuring light in the visible range, using the Fabry–Perot interferometric technique. The microspectrometers are devices able to do the analysis of the individual spectral components in a given signal and are extensively used on spectroscopy. The analysis of the interaction between the matter and the radiated energy can found huge applications in the industrial sector. The microspectrometers can be divided on three types, determined by the dispersion element or the used approach and can be found microspectrometers based on prisms, gratings interferometers. Both types of microspectrometers can be used to analyze the spectral content ranging from the ultraviolet (UV, below 390 nm), passing into the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum (VIS, 390–760 nm) up to the infrared (IR, above 760 nm). The microspectrometers in silicon are versatile microinstruments because silicon-compatible techniques can be used to assembly both the optical components with the readout and control electronics, thus resulting high-volume with high-reproducibility and low-cost batch fabrications. A compensation technique for minimizing the scattered light effects on interferometers was implemented and is also a contribution of this paper. Fabry–Perot microspectrometers for the visible range are discussed in depth for use in industrial applications.     

Novel TMM for analyzing evanescent waves and optimized subwavelength imaging in a multilayer structure

Here, we report the best configuration for metal-dielectric multilayer structure that recently has been used for sub-wavelength imaging beyond the diffraction limit. We have used Genetic Algorithm (GA) to achieve the best optical transfer function (OTF) calculated by a novel Transfer Matrix Method (TMM) for evanescent waves, to find optimized configuration of the structure for sub-wavelength imaging. Our optimized configuration composed of Ag–GaP with 10 nm thickness for both layers and air as the surrounding medium, shows 0.05 λ imaging resolution with 83.82% contrast at 545 nm wavelength. Also, we show that in photolithographic applications if imaging and object layers are replaced by a photoresist and quartz respectively instead of air, 0.03 λ resolution can be obtained. In contrast to the other works, we have mathematically obtained a structure that exhibits better resolution in a visible wavelength in spite of thinner layers thickness by regarding fabrication difficulties.     

Low loss propagation in slow light photonic crystal waveguides at group indices up to 60

We have designed slow light photonic crystal waveguides operating in a low loss and constant dispersion window of Δλ = 2 nm around λ = 1565 nm with a group index of n_g = 60. We experimentally demonstrate a relatively low propagation loss, of 130 dB/cm, for waveguides up to 800 μm in length. This result is particularly remarkable given that the waveguides were written on an electron-beam lithography tool with a writefield of 100 μm that exhibits stitching errors of typically 10–50 nm. We reduced the impact of these stitching errors by introducing “slow–fast–slow” mode conversion interfaces and show that these interfaces reduce the loss from 320 dB/cm to 130 dB/cm at n_g = 60. This significant improvement highlights the importance of the slow–fast–slow method and shows that high performance slow light waveguides can be realised with lengths much longer than the writing field of a given e-beam lithography tool.     

The effect of In/N ratio on the optical quality and lasing threshold in GaxIn1 − xAs1 − yNy/GaAs laser structures

We present a review of published work concerning the effect of In and N compositions on the operation wavelength, optical quality and lasing threshold in Ga_xIn_1 − xAs_1 − yN_y/GaAs QW and double heterostructure lasers. We show that the emission wavelength in the range between 1.0 and 1.4 μ m can be obtained for a wide range of In and/or N concentrations. However, in most Fabry–Perot lasers and vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) reported in the literature, the threshold current density plotted as a function of the relative In/N composition (R =  (1  − x) / y) indicate a broad minima for 40  < R <  70, suggesting an optimum relative composition. We also present the results of our studies concerning the optical quality of Ga_xIn_1 − xAs_1 − yN_y/GaAs single quantum wells for R =  15. We show that the optical quality of GaInAsN can be improved while achieving a red shift in the PL spectra. This is unlike the results obtained by rapid thermal annealing or conventional annealing, which are widely employed as post-growth treatment techniques, where any increase in the PL intensity is almost always accompanied by an undesired blue shift.     

Transparent CdO/n-GaN(0001) heterojunction for optoelectronic applications

Undoped CdO films were prepared by sol–gel method. Transparent heterojunction diodes were fabricated by depositing n-type CdO films on the n-type GaN (0001) substrate. Current–voltage (I–V) measurements of the device were evaluated, and the results indicated a non-ideal rectifying characteristic with I_F/I_R value as high as 1.17×10³ at 2 V, low leakage current of 4.88×10⁻⁶ A and a turn-on voltage of about 0.7 V. From the optical data, the optical band gaps for the CdO film and GaN were calculated to be 2.30 eV and 3.309 eV, respectively. It is evaluated that interband transition in the film is provided by the direct allowed transition. The n-GaN (0001)/CdO heterojunction device has an optical transmission of 50–70% from 500 nm to 800 nm wavelength range.     

Optical Fabry–Perot filter based on photonic band gap quasi-periodic one-dimensional multilayer according to the definite Rudin–Shapiro distribution

In this work, a new type of optical filter using photonic band gap materials has been suggested. Indeed, a combination of periodic H(LH)^J and Rudin–Shapiro quasi-periodic one-dimensional photonic multilayer systems (RSM) were used. SiO₂ (L) and TiO₂ (H) were chosen as two elementary layers with refractive indexes n_L = 1.45 and n_H = 2.30 respectively. The study configuration is H(LH)^J[RSM]^PH(LH)^J, which forms an effective Fabry–Perot filter (FPF), where J and P are respectively the repetition number of periodic and (RSM) stacks. We have numerically investigated by means of transfer-matrix approach the transmission properties in the visible spectral range of FPF system. We show that the number and position of resonator peaks are dependent on the (RSM) repetition number P and incidence angle of exciting light. The effect of these two parameters for producing an improved polychromatic filter with high finesse coefficient (F) and quality factor (Q) is studied in details.     

Compact WDM demultiplexer for seven channels in photonic crystal

We demonstrate a new device concept for wavelength division demultiplexing based on planar photonic crystal waveguides. The filtering of wavelength channels is realized by shifting the cutoff frequency of the fundamental photonic bandgap mode in consecutive sections of the waveguide. The shift is realized by modifying the size of the border holes.The proposed demultiplexer has an area equal to (16.5 μm × 6.5 μm) and thus it is verified that this structure is very small and can be integrated easily into optical integrated circuits with nanophotonic technologies. The output wavelengths of designed structure can be tuned for communication applications, around 1550 nm. The wavelengths of demultiplexer channels are λ₁ = 1.590 μm, λ₂ = 1.566 μm, λ₃ = 1.525 μm, λ₄ = 1.510 μm, λ₅ = 1.484 μm, λ₆ = 1.450 μm, λ₇ = 1.400 μm respectively. Designs offering improvement of number of the separate wavelengths (seven), miniaturization of the structure (107.25 μm²) is our aim in this work.In our structure, we consider that the 2D triangular lattice photonic crystal is composed of air holes surrounded by dielectric. Its parameters are: radius of holes (r = 0.130 μm), lattice constant (a = 0.380 μm), and index of membrane (n = 3.181:InP). The numerical model used to simulate the structure of the demultiplexer is based on the finite difference time domain (FDTD).     

High-spatial-resolution monitoring of strong magnetic field using Rb vapor nanometric-thin cell

We have implemented the so-called λ-Zeeman technique (LZT) to investigate individual hyperfine transitions between Zeeman sublevels of the Rb atoms in a strong external magnetic field B in the range of 2500 ? 5000 G (recently it was established that LZT is very convenient for the range of 10 ? 2500 G). Atoms are confined in a nanometric thin cell (NTC) with the thickness L = λ, where λ is the resonant wavelength 794 nm for Rb D₁ line. Narrow velocity selective optical pumping (VSOP) resonances in the transmission spectrum of the NTC are split into several components in a magnetic field with the frequency positions and transition probabilities depending on the B-field. Possible applications are described, such as magnetometers with nanometric local spatial resolution and tunable atomic frequency references.     

Thermal stability and spectroscopic properties of erbium-doped niobic-tungsten–tellurite glasses for laser and amplifier devices

Er³⁺ doped niobic-tungsten–tellurite glasses doped with concentration of Er³⁺ ion up to 3 wt% were fabricated. The effect of Er³⁺ doping concentration on thermal stability and optical properties was investigated in order to obtain the most suitable rare earth content for developing 1.5 μm compact fiber amplifier pumped with a commercial telecom 980 nm laser diode. The maximum doping concentration allowed was found to be around 1.77×10²⁰ ions/cm³, for which a broad 1.5 μm emission spectra of 65 nm FWHM and a lifetime of 3.4 ms for the ⁴I_13/2 level was measured.     

Deposition of device quality amorphous silicon and solar cell from argon dilution of silane

In our present study hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin films and solar cells have been prepared in a conventional single chamber rf-PECVD unit from silane–argon mixture by varying radio frequency (rf) power densities from 6 mW/cm² to 50 mW/cm². By optimizing the properties of the intrinsic material we have chosen a material which is deposited at 6 mW/cm² rf power density, 0.2 Torr pressure, 175 ^oC substrate temperature and by 97% argon dilution. For this material minority carriers (holes) diffusion length (L_d) measured in the as deposited state is 180 nm and it degrades by 15% after light soaking. This high L_d value indicates that the material is of device quality. We have fabricated a single junction solar cell having the structure p-a-SiC:H/i-a-Si:H/n-a-Si:H without optimizing the doped layers. This set exhibits a mean open circuit voltage of 0.8 V and conversion efficiency of 7.7%. After light soaking conversion efficiency decreases by 15% which demonstrates that it is possible to deposit device grade material and solar cells from silane–argon mixture.     

Erbium doping into silicate glasses to form luminescent optical layers for photonics applications

Here we summarise results of our research on the Er-containing thin surface layers in the silicate glasses and on the effect of the layers’ composition on their luminescence properties (emission at 1535 nm) in the wavelength region widely used in photonics. The optical layers were fabricated by Er³⁺ (melt)⇔Li⁺/Na⁺ (glass substrate) ion exchange in the specially designed Li₂O containing silicate glasses using various conditions (including annealing of the samples) to obtain a set of layers with diverse distribution of the Er³⁺ ions. Changes in the chemical composition of the prepared layers were suggested to avoid the concentration quenching effect and to improve their luminescence properties; special attention was paid to presence of hydrogen in the layers that may decrease the emission intensity. Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy and Elastic Recoil Detection were used to obtain detailed information on migration of erbium and hydrogen through the glass matrix, respectively. Photoluminescence spectra of the fabricated samples were measured (excitation at 980 nm) to examine the desired emission around 1535 nm.