Theoretical study of polymeric metal clad optical waveguide polarizer

Planar optical waveguides consisting of thin dielectric films and buffer layers with metal cladding have been investigated theoretically. A computer program was written to calculate the exact zeroes of complex eigenvalue equation for TE and TM modes in multilayer metal clad waveguide polarizer. Numerical results and illustrations are given for Polycarbonate waveguide with other polymers as buffer and Al, Ag and Au as cladding metals at . It is also shown that, using thin (finite) films of metal produce more efficient polarizers as compared to semi-infinite metal films. Effect of low index buffer layer on attenuation of TM/TE modes is also investigated.     

Dual-core leaky optical waveguide as an integrated-optic polarizer

We present a design of a dual-core leaky waveguide that can be used as an integrated-optic polarizer. The proposed polarizer works on the principle of mode filtering. The structure is characterized by two cores, namely core-1 and core-2 and a high index layer in the upper-most region, such a structure supports leaky modes. The leakage losses of the modes have been calculated by using the transfer matrix method (TMM). Single polarization operation is ensured by high differential leakage loss between fundamental TE and TM modes. We show TE-pass operation with 0.5 dB/mm loss in TE₀ mode and 13 dB/mm loss in TM₀ mode, and TM-pass operation with 0.36 dB/mm loss in TM₀ mode and 7.45 dB/mm loss in TE₀ mode. Besides single-polarization operation, single-mode operation of the structure is ensured by high leakage loss of all the other higher-order modes.     

应变液晶散射偏光片的试制

介绍了聚合物分散液晶(PDLC)和应变液晶(SLC)以及散射偏光片的概念,实验制备了应变液晶散射偏光片样品,样品由两张胶片夹层聚合物分散液晶膜在紫外光固化过程中施加剪切应力所形成。给出了样品偏光显微镜照片和可见光分光光度计偏光特性光谱分析。实验结果表明,应变液晶散射偏光片样品外观半透明,在正交偏光场中转动样品有颜色变化,通过样品观察液晶显示器屏幕,在不同角度下有透射和散射作用,在偏光显微镜中观察样品有衬垫料被拉动的痕迹,光谱分析显示样品在绿光550nm波长处最大透光率T∥≈50%,最小透光率T⊥≈5%,偏振度P≈82%。实验结果对于研制实用的拉伸液晶散射偏光片具有参考意义。     

On the transmission by liquid crystal tapered optical fibers

A three-layer liquid crystal tapered optical fiber (LCTF) is investigated with the emphasis on the power confinements by the low order TE and TM modes sustained in the different sections of LCTF. The outermost clad section is considered to be made of liquid crystal with radial anisotropy whereas the core and the inner clad are dielectric regions. Rigorous field expressions in the different LCTF sections are deduced, and the plots of power confinement factors (or the relative distributions) are ultimately made considering different fiber dimensions. The results reveal that the TE modes confine maximum amount of power in the outermost liquid crystal region, which is attributed to the radial anisotropy of the section. Such features of LCTFs attract their usefulness in the area of field coupling devices and optical sensing where evanescent field technique is primarily implemented.     

剪切液晶散射偏光玻璃的研制与应用

介绍了聚合物分散液晶、剪切液晶、散射偏光片以及透明投影屏幕等概念。实验制备了剪切液晶散射偏光玻璃样品,样品由两张玻璃夹层聚合物分散液晶膜在紫外光固化过程中施加剪切应力制成。实验给出了样品偏光显微镜照片和透光率以及雾度随透光轴与入射偏振光偏振方向夹角的变化曲线。剪切液晶散射偏光玻璃外观半透明,存在透光轴。散射偏光玻璃与吸收偏光片组合具有调光窗功能,与单片液晶投影机或单片硅上液晶投影机配套还能用作背投影成像效果十分清晰的透明投影屏幕。     

Intrinsic integrated optical temperature sensor based on waveguide bend loss

Curvature of a multimode integrated optical waveguide reduces the numerical aperture and induces radiation losses. In this paper, we study this phenomenon and we present a geometrical approach to calculate the local numerical aperture and the intensity attenuation. We exploit the bending effect on the local numerical aperture to make a new intrinsic temperature sensor. The simulation results are validated for the silica/silicone integrated optical case. The principal performances of the silica/silicone temperature sensor are the extended temperatures range (−50 to 200 °C) with an excellent linearity response (1%) between 20 and 200 °C.     

Numerical study of an ion-exchanged glass waveguide using both two-dimensional and three-dimensional models

A numerical study is carried out to compare the two-dimensional (2-D) case and three-dimensional (3-D) case for the modelling of an ion-exchanged glass waveguide. It is shown that different waveguide widths on the photomask correspond to different ion concentration distributions after an annealing process. A numerical example is presented of two waveguide sections with different widths indicates that due to the abrupt change of the waveguide width, a 3-D theoretical model is required for an accurate prediction of the parameters of ion-exchanged glass waveguides. The good agreement between the modelled and measured results proves that the developed 3-D numerical model can be beneficially utilized in the generalized design of optical devices based on ion-exchange waveguides.     

液晶调制的光子晶体可控偏光片和光开关

与介质柱型光子晶体相比，空气孔光子晶体更易于制作和集成而更有应用价值.采用平面波展开法证实了填充液晶的二维三角形分布的空气孔光子晶体方向能隙的可调节性.数值模拟结果表明：1)通过外界电场控制空气孔中所填充的相列液晶的方向可以对光子晶体的方向能隙进行调节，这种可调节性可用于制作场敏偏光片.这与Liu等人研究介质柱型光子晶体的结论相类似；2)用phenylacetylene型液晶替代5CB液晶作为填充物质所得到的空气孔光子晶体偏光片可使用的频率范围显著增大.在此基础上，还研究了填充液晶的光子晶体波导传输谱线的可调节性对特定波长的光切断和开通控制的原理，实现了与以往光开关原理不同的光子晶体光开关. 关键词： 光子晶体 液晶 可调节性 平面波展开法 场敏偏光片     

Comparison of optical compensations based on discotic liquid crystals with linear and non-linear orientation for wide viewing angle twisted nematic liquid crystal displays

Optical compensation film using discotic liquid crystals has been commercialized to suppress light leakage of twisted nematic (TN) liquid crystal (LC) cells in the dark state when the viewing directions are off-axes. In the conventional film, the tilt angle variation of the discotic LC layers is linear, whereas that of the rod-like LC layers in the TN cell is non-linear with twist alignment. We investigated the optical compensation effects in terms of iso-contrast ratio, gray scale inversion and color shift with linear and non-linear orientation in a tilt angle or twist and non-twist orientation on TN-LC cells. The results showed that the optical compensation with non-linear orientation exhibited an improved performance in suppressing light leakage in the dark state.     

Nonlinear TM modes in cylindrical liquid crystal waveguide

We consider a nonlinear cylindrical fiber with a nematic liquid crystal (LC) core having initially the escaped configuration and subject to the action of a normal mode propagating electromagnetic field of arbitrary intensity. We derive a set of coupled equations governing the nonlinear dynamics of the electromagnetic field and the confined LC. We solve numerically these coupled equations and find simultaneously the distorted textures of the nematic inside the cylinder and the Transverse Magnetic modes in the guide. We analyze the dependence of these solutions on the electromagnetic field intensity by assuming consistently soft boundary conditions. We have found a dramatic correlation in the spatial distribution of the nematic's configuration and the Transverse Magnetic modes. Thus, the director adopts configurations completely guided by the specific mode involved. We show that the cut-off frequencies and dispersion relations can be tuned by varying the intensity of the electromagnetic propagating field.     

利用耦合波导列提高光子晶体波导辐射

将耦合波导列应用于光子晶体单模波导,提出一种提高光辐射的光子晶体结构. 基于时域有限差分方法的理论研究表明,当将耦合波导列附加到单模光子晶体波导出口端的适当位置,使出射光分成若干强弱不一的光束,这些光束在传播空间通过干涉形成一定程度的汇聚,大大提高了光子晶体波导在水平方向的光辐射效率. 另外,当耦合波导列的行数大于某固定值(2N=8)时,辐射质量基本保持不变,由此可获得最紧凑的器件结构. 这种类型光子晶体在近场光学和集成光学等诸多方面有潜在的应用价值. 关键词： 光子晶体波导 光辐射 波导列 耦合波导     

Photonic crystal optical switch using a new slow light waveguide and heterostructure Y-junctions

In this paper we propose a photonic crystal Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based on a new coupled-cavity waveguide, where its advantage over the previous type of photonic crystal coupled-cavity waveguide is discussed. A heterostructure Y-junction is comprised of square and hexagonal lattices of the new coupled-cavity waveguide. It is designed by applying the temporal coupled-mode theory and is optimized, where an overall throughput efficiency of more than 90% is achieved at the wavelength of 1.55 μm. The design of the Y-junction is performed using finite-difference time-domain method. The designed heterostructure Y-junction is used in the structure of a MZI, where its arms are approximately as short as 24 μm. Finally, the transient response of the proposed optical switch is investigated.     

Influence of disorder and deformation on the optical properties of a two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide

We investigate the effect of disorder and mechanical deformation on a two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide. The dispersion characteristics and transmittance of the waveguide are studied using the finite element method. Results show that the geometric change of the dielectric material perpendicular to the light propagation direction has a larger influence on the waveguide characteristics than that parallel to the light propagation direction. Mechanical deformation has an obvious influence on the performance of the waveguide. In particular, longitudinal deformed structure exhibits distinct optical characteristics from the ideal one. Studies on this work will provide useful guideline to the fabrication and practical applications based on photonic crystal waveguides.     

Research on temperature characteristics of liquid crystal filter

The effect of temperature on the spectrum characteristic of the liquid crystal filter in the region of visible light was investigated theoretically and experimentally in detail. The conclusion shows that with the increasing temperature, the center wavelength of the filter will shift toward the short wavelength, and the center wavelength of the filter will shift toward long wavelength as the temperature decreases. The result of numerical simulation is in excellent agreement with the experiment result. In addition, the experiment results indicate that with the increasing temperature and reducing wavelength the transmittance of liquid crystal filter will reduce. According to the above conclusion we propose a new structure for maintaining a stable central wavelength output of the liquid crystal filter with the changing temperature, and it does not require temperature control equipment, is easy to operate, and has no need to look for special temperature coefficient birefringence, etc. This structure may find a certain application for liquid crystal filter as we believe, particularly, in the condition of different environment temperature.     

光子晶体波导中的孤子传输及其延迟特性研究

研究了正方晶格和三角晶格空气背景硅介质柱光子晶体线缺陷波导导模左带隙边缘处的亮孤子脉冲传播特性及其慢光延迟特性. 采用平面波展开法仿真分析了波导相邻两行介质柱大小r₁和r₂以及波导宽度D对孤子脉冲传输所需峰值功率P₀和延迟时间T_s的影响,总结了其变化规律. 通过调整波导结构得到了正方晶格和三角晶格优化波导结构,优化后,正方晶格结构波导P₀减小了81.17%,T_s增加了66.32%;三角晶格结构波导P₀减小了73.7%,T_s增加了67.63%,实现了孤子传输性能的大幅度优化. 关键词： 光子晶体波导 光孤子 峰值功率 延迟时间     

表面液晶-垂直腔面发射激光器温度特性的研究

本文利用向列相液晶层作为激光偏振调控单元,涂覆于垂直腔面发射激光器（VCSEL）表面,测量并分析了不同温度下VCSEL正交线偏振光的阈值电流、峰值光功率和I-P特性. 实验结果表明：温度为293 K时,涂覆液晶后激光偏振第一跳变点和第二跳变点之间的电流值ΔI增大了2.2 mA,比无液晶时增大1倍. 温度为313 K、注入电流为3 mA时,两种正交线偏振光的光功率差ΔP由133.6 μW增大到248.8 μW,进一步增加了线偏振光的各向异性. 表面液晶层的引入有效地扩大了VCSEL的正交线偏振态稳定范围和光功率差,为实现液晶VCSEL高温单偏振稳定的设计和器件制备提供了理论和实验基础. 关键词： 垂直腔面发射激光器 向列相液晶 偏振态     

Dispersion optimization of slow light in slotted photonic crystal waveguide by selective air holes infiltration

This work proposed a methodology based on the liquid infiltration of slotted photonic crystal waveguide (SPCW). By choosing the refractive index that infiltrated in the first and second rows of air holes adjacent to the slot, respectively, SPCW was optimized to possess wideband slow light with large group index and low dispersion. The properties of SPCW were numerically simulated by plane wave expansion (PWE) method and finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Simulation results showed that the designed SPCW could control the group index for the same SPCW with the nearly constant group index of 50, 68, 81, 150, and 200 over 7.5 nm, 5.5 nm, 3.1 nm, 1.65 nm, and 1.15 nm. In addition, we demonstrated that this post-fabrication liquid infiltrated technology has the potential for realizing reconfigurable and tunable SPCW, in which the flexible wavelength range of SPCW can also be controlled by different liquid infiltration.     

Influence of disorder and deformation on the optical properties of two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide

We investigate the effect of disorder and mechanical deformation on two- dimensional photonic crystal waveguide. The dispersion characteristics and transmittance of the waveguide are studied by using the finite element method. Results show that the geometric change of the dielectric material perpendicular to the light propagation direction has a larger influence on the waveguide characteristics than that parallel to the light propagation direction. Mechanical deformation has an obvious influence on the performance of the waveguide. In particular, longitudinal deformed structure exhibits distinct optical characteristics from the ideal one. Studies on this work will provide useful guideline to the fabrications and practical applications based on photonic crystal waveguides.     

Double optical waveguide in Cu-doped KNSBN crystal formed by MeV boron ion implantation

We reported for what is to be believed the first time a double optical waveguide in a Cu-doped potassium sodium strontium barium niobate (KNSBN) crystal formed by double boron ion implantation. The energy and dose of B⁺ and B³⁺ ions were (3+6) MeV and (2+2)×10¹⁴ ions/cm², respectively. The refractive index profile of the waveguide showed a double-barrier confined shape, which suggested the formation of a two-layer waveguide structure. The two waveguide layers were with thickness of 2.6 and 2 μm, respectively, which was in a good agreement with the parameters obtained from transport and range of ions in matter 98 (TRIM) code simulation. The nuclear energy loss distribution of the MeV B ions implanted into this crystal had a similar shape to that of the waveguide index profile, which means an inherent relationship between the waveguide formation and the energetic energy deposition.     

Plasmonic all-optical bistable device based on nematic liquid crystal

Low-power all-optical bistable liquid crystal (LC) devices are reported in which surface plasmons propagate along a metallic grating. The threshold switching illumination was 1.4 mW/mm² in the device with the twisted-nematic LC cell. This is a lower value than for all-optical bistable devices reported previously. This low-power bistability device can be used in two-dimensional optical memories or spatial light modulators.