Applying the optical activity of cholesteric liquid crystal for measuring small wavelength differences

This work proposes a simple measurement technique based on the optical activity of cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) and circular common-path heterodyne interferometry for measuring small wavelength differences. A circularly polarized heterodyne light passes through a CLC cell and an analyzer, generating an interference signal. When the CLC cell is properly chosen with a circular regime, it has strong optical activity. Accordingly, the phase difference between the left and right circular light of the interference signal depends strongly on the wavelength. As the wavelength changes, variations of the phase difference can be accurately detected by heterodyne interferometry. Substituting the variation of phase difference into specially derived equations, the wavelength variations can be estimated accurately. The feasibility of this method, which is applicable when the wavelength is larger than the product of the pitch and the refractive index of the CLC cell, was demonstrated; it provides the advantages of simple installation, ease of operation, and high accuracy.     

Texture evolution of cholesteric liquid crystal driven by a thermal process

Cholesteric liquid crystal displays (Ch-LCDs) have potential as screens in portable readers. In the present study, it is demonstrated that a Ch-LCD can be driven by a thermal process at a temperature of 90 °C. At a suitable temperature, the texture of the cholesteric liquid crystal will be transfrred from planar to focal conic. The experimental results show that the reflectance of a Ch-LCD is influenced by texture after the thermal process. After thermal treatment at 90 °C, the periodicity was reduced from 63 nm to 55 nm. A chain tilting angle of ∼29° was estimated.     

Biphotonic effect-induced phase transition in dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystals and their applications

This work studies the biphotonic effect in samples that are cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) doped with azo-C5. The experimental results show that the photo-isomerization of azo-C5 not only changes the clearing point of the sample, but also shifts the reflection band that is associated with the planar texture. Additionally, azo dye-doped CLCs (DDCLCs) have bi-stable or tri-stable states, as determined by the ambient temperature. Photo-switching between these bi-stable/tri-stable states is systematically studied. The result indicates that photo-addressing one of these states (planar, focal conic, and isotropic states) using a low- or high-intensity Ar⁺ laser beam is feasible. The results thus obtained are used to fabricate a photo-rewritable DDCLC display.     

Growth and characterization of organic nonlinear optical material: 5-Nitroindole (5NI) for optical applications

Single crystals of organic nonlinear optical material 5-Nitroindole (5NI) has been grown by slow cooling solution growth technique using methanol as a solvent. The grown crystal was subjected to single crystal X-ray diffraction technique to determine the lattice parameters. Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FTIR) was recorded to identify the presence of functional groups. The optical properties such as the optical band gap, extinction coefficient (k), refractive index (n) and optical conductivity (σ) were calculated. The optical band gap of 5NI is 2.33 eV. The melting point and thermal stability of the crystal was analyzed from TG/DTA studies. Dielectric studies were carried out at different temperatures and frequencies.     

Simulation and evaluation of phase noise for optical amplification using semiconductor optical amplifiers in DPSK applications

A thorough simulation and evaluation of phase noise for optical amplification using semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is very important for predicting its performance in differential phase-shift keyed (DPSK) applications. In this paper, standard deviation and probability distribution of differential phase noise at the SOA output are obtained from the statistics of simulated differential phase noise. By using a full-wave model of SOA, the noise performance in the entire operation range can be investigated. It is shown that nonlinear phase noise substantially contributes to the total phase noise in case of a noisy signal amplified by a saturated SOA and the nonlinear contribution is larger with shorter SOA carrier lifetime. It is also shown that Gaussian distribution can be useful as a good approximation of the total differential phase noise statistics in the whole operation range. Power penalty due to differential phase noise is evaluated using a semi-analytical probability density function (PDF) of receiver noise. Obvious increase of power penalty at high signal input powers can be found for low input OSNR, which is due to both the large nonlinear differential phase noise and the dependence of BER vs. receiving power curvature on differential phase noise standard deviation.     

Chiral mirror and optical resonator designs for circularly polarized light: suppression of cross-polarized reflectances and transmittances

A left-handed chiral sculptured thin film (STF) that reflects strongly at the wavelength of the circular Bragg resonance tends to partially convert the handedness of incident LCP (left-circularly-polarized) light to RCP (right-circularly-polarized). We show that the cross-polarized component of the reflected RCP beam can be eliminated by interference with an additional RCP beam that is reflected at the interface of an isotropic cover and an AR (antireflecting) layer. For best results the refractive index and thickness of the AR layer need to accommodate a phase change on reflection that occurs at the chiral film. Effective suppression of the reflectances R_RR, R_RL, R_LR and the transmittances T_RL, T_LR can be achieved by sandwiching the chiral reflector between such amplitude and phase-matched AR coatings. Co-polarized chiral reflectors of this type may form efficient handed optical resonators. For LCP light the optical properties of such a handed resonator are formally the same as the properties of the isotropic passive or active Fabry–Perot resonators, but the handed resonator is transparent to RCP light.     

Optical absorption and spectrophotometric studies on the optical constants and dielectric of poly (o-toluidine) (POT) films grown by spin coating deposition

In this work, a poly(o-toluidine) “POT” was synthesized by chemical oxidative polymerization method in aqueous media. High uniform and good adhesion thin films of POT have been successfully deposited by the spin coating technique. The films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The XRD pattern of the POT shows the semi-crystalline nature of the films. FTIR studies show the information of functional groups in POT. The optical transmittance and reflectance of POT film was measured in the 200–2500 nm wavelength range. The absorption coefficient analysis shows that the optical band gaps of POT film are direct allowed transition band gaps with 1.2 and 2.6 eV. Other optical absorption parameters such as extinction molar coefficient, oscillator strength and electric dipole strength were also calculated. The dispersion parameters were determined and discussed based on the single oscillator model. According to the analysis of dispersion curves some important parameters such as dispersion energy (E_d), oscillator energy (E_o), high frequency dielectric constant ₍ε_∞) and lattice dielectric constant (ε_L) were also evaluated. Discussion of the obtained results and their comparison with the previous published data were also given. The obtained desirable results of POT thin film can be useful for the optoelectronic applications.     

FDTD simulation of time varying optical vortex phenomena in SOI photonic crystal structures

In this paper we analyze the time varying optical vortex phenomena in the gain photonic crystals built on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer by using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. With launching the optical waves in 1.55 μm wavelength to the SOI rib waveguide, optical vortices are generated and the spinning details are observed at various time steps. The analysis results are helpful to understand the progress of optical vortices which may be utilized for the development of future nonlinear optical switches.     

Design of wavelength adjustable lasers with photonic crystal based Fabry-Perot etalon for applications in optical network units of wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network systems

We propose a novel wavelength adjustable laser (WAL) with a photonic crystal based Fabry-Perot (FP) etalon. This laser will be a promising light source for optical network units (ONUs) of conventional wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON) systems for up-stream transmission. It has the merits of a relatively simple fabrication and operation, wide process tolerance, low-cost, high side-mode suppression ratio, and wavelength-tunable characteristics. The optimization of the device structure and the implementation methods for this type of laser are discussed. Although the WALs in WDM-PON systems are not colorless, each laser can cover several wavelengths. Thus, the required number of different ONUs can be reduced. This approach may be necessary for 10 Gbps upstream transmission in next-generation optical access networks because the 10 Gbps data rate is difficult to achieve by using current colorless schemes.     

Giga-bit optical receiver for plastic optical fibre

An optical receiver with high sensitivity and linearity specially designed for Giga-bit communications over small-bandwidth high-attenuation multimode plastic optical fiber is presented. An automatic gain control transimpedance amplifier and linear post amplifiers are used to maintain a good performance with multilevel modulation. Using multilevel signaling and large-diameter integrated photodiodes make the presented optical receiver suitable for large core plastic optical fiber. For a wavelength of 675 nm, a sensitivity of −26.3 dB m (BER = 10⁻⁹) at 500 Mb/s is presented by a binary signal. A data rate of 1 Gb/s and a sensitivity of −19.8 dB m (BER = 10⁻⁹) are achieved with four-level pulse amplitude modulation.     

Theoretical analysis of pattern effect suppression in semiconductor optical amplifier utilizing optical delay interferometer

The ability of an optical delay interferometer (ODI) to suppress the pattern effect that is inherently present in a straightforward, solitary semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) whose dynamic response is slower than the period of its driving high-speed return-to-zero (RZ) data signal is theoretically investigated. For this purpose an existing comprehensive model that simulates and links the operation of these two elements is methodically applied to their concatenated configuration. In this manner an extensive set of curves is numerically obtained, which allow to analyze and assess the impact of the input pulse energy and width as well as of the SOA carrier lifetime, linewidth enhancement factor and small signal gain on the amplitude modulation of the transmitted sequence at the output of each one of these block units. Their thorough study and interpretation reveals that the employment of the ODI can significantly reduce the value of this quality metric resulting from a single SOA only. The main offered benefit, however, is that any technical restrictions regarding the involved critical parameters can be considerably relaxed while at the same time their useful operational range can be extended. These important findings highlight the necessity of placing this passive device after the SOA and exploiting it in order to effectively alleviate the detrimental pattern-dependent degradation. This fact in conjunction with its overall practicality renders it a promising candidate for enhancing, within the frame of the proposed scheme, the performance of SOAs that are employed as pure amplification elements in fiber-optic communication systems and networking applications.     

Highly reliable optical interconnection network on printed circuit board for distributed computer systems

A highly reliable interchip optical interconnection network on a printed circuit board (PCB) was designed and realized, and experiments confirmed that the data rate in each channel could reach above 3.125 Gbps and the bit error rate (BER) could be up to 1.27×10⁻¹⁸, which would be a good solution to the problem of communication bottlenecks between high-speed VLSI chips.     

Experimental studies of the WDM signal crosstalk in two-pump fiber optical parametric amplifiers

We showed that cross-gain modulation is dominant over another kind of common signal quality degradation, namely four-wave mixing, in a two-pump fiber optical parametric amplifier (OPA) WDM system. We also demonstrated experimentally that the signal quality degradation can be improved significantly by a two-orthogonal-pump OPA (2OP-OPA) over the conventional two-parallel-pump OPA (2PP-OPA).     

VCSEL-based gigabit IR-UWB link for converged communication and sensing applications in optical metro-access networks

We report on experimental demonstration of an impulse radio ultrawideband (IR-UWB) based converged communication and sensing system. A 1550-nm VCSEL-generated IR-UWB signal is used for 2-Gbps wireless data distribution over 800-m and 50-km single mode fiber links which present short-range in-building and long-reach access network applications. The IR-UWB signal is also used to simultaneously measure the rotational speed of a blade spinning between 18 and 30 Hz. To the best of our knowledge, this is the very first demonstration of a simultaneous gigabit UWB telecommunication and wireless UWB sensing application, paving the way forward for the development and deployment of converged UWB VCSEL-based technologies in access and in-building networks of the future.     

An adaptive reservation scheme for optical network

In this paper, the various Optical Burst Switching (OBS) reservation schemes have been examined in order to reduce data loss caused by either channel scheduling or resources. A novel multi-service OBS edge node with synchronized bandwidth reservation mechanism (SRM) has been proposed, which enables high-speed network transport nodes to dynamically reserve bandwidth needed for active data burst flows. The performance of the proposed mechanism is evaluated by means of NS-2 simulation. The results show that the packet delay is kept within the constraint for each traffic flow and the performance metrics such as burst loss rate, throughput and fairness are remarkably improved.     

Double-state controllable optical switching through three tunnel-coupled quantum dots inside waveguide coupled photonic crystal microcavity

We study optical transmission properties of a combined system which is composed of a photonic crystal (PC) microcavity with low quality factor Q, a triple quantum dot (QD) embedded in cavity and two parallel waveguides. We demonstrate that low coupling strength (i.e., the weak coupling regime) between a cavity and a dot, by means of electron tunnel-induced coupling, can lead to a type of double-state controllable optical switching under the experimentally available parameter conditions.     

Tailoring optical properties of TiO_2 in silica glass for limiting applications

We present the linear and nonlinear optical studies on TiO2-SiO2 nanocomposites with varying compositions. Opti- cal band gap of the material is found to vary with the amount of SiO2 in the composite. The phenomenon of two-photon absorption （TPA） in TiO2/SiO2 nanocomposites has been studied using open aperture Z-scan technique. The nanocom- posites show better nonlinear optical properties than pure TiO2, which can be attributed to the surface states and weak dielectric confinement of TiO2 nanoparticles by SiO2 matrix. The nanocomposites are thermally treated and similar studies are performed. The anatase form of TiO2 in the nanocomposites shows superior properties relative to the amorphous and rutile counterpart. The involved mechanism is explained by rendering the dominant role played by the excitons in the TiO2 nanoparticles.     

A resource-saving decoding scheme of the orthogonally concatenated codes for optical transport networks in FPGA

A decoding scheme of the orthogonally concatenated codes with low resource utilizations is proposed. In the optical transport networks (OTN), forward error-correction (FEC) techniques are used to reduce the errors which occur in transmissions. Two-orthogonal-concatenated (TOC) codes are widely used in FEC techniques for their powerful error-correction capabilities based on the iterative decoding procedure. However, the framing structure is complex so the decoding procedure is more difficult than the decoding of in–out concatenated codes. And the powerful error-correction capability relies on the multi-iterative decoding processing, thus how to effectively utilize the hardware resources is a very important problem. Especially when the decoding procedure is implemented in the field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices, effective optimizations are required for the limited resources. In this paper we present an iterative decoding scheme in FPGA with low resource utilizations. As an example, an actual engineering application under the G.975.1 recommendation is given to show the efficiency of the proposed design.     

Semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-assisted Sagnac switch for designing of all-optical tri-state logic gates

Tri-state logic plays a significant role in carry free arithmetical operation. Design of all-optical scheme of three basic tri-state logical operation (NOT, AND, OR) with the help of polarization encoded semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-assisted Sagnac interferometric switch has been studied and investigated in this present paper. Numerical simulation is also presented, which verifies the theoretical results. Insertion loss, contrast ratio, extinction ratio, amplitude modulation, bit error rate and signal to noise ratio values have also been analyzed.     

A new metal-organic nonlinear optical material: L-Asparagine Indium chloride (LAIn) for photonics application

Single crystal of l-Asparagine Indium chloride (LAIn), a new semi-organic crystal was grown by slow evaporation method with deionized water as solvent at ambient condition. The crystal structure of LAIn has been determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction and the result shows that the crystal belongs to the orthorhombic system with P2₁2₁2₁ space group. The crystalline nature of grown crystal was analyzed by powder X-ray diffraction analysis. Optical parameters, such as absorbance, transmittance and optical band gap energy were analyzed using UV–Vis NIR transmittance data at the range of 190–800?nm. The ultraviolet (UV) emission nature of the sample was established from the sharp emission peaks in photoluminescence (PL) spectrum. The photo conductivity test exhibits that the grown crystal has positive photo conductive nature. The induced surface laser damage threshold (LDT) for the grown crystal was measured using Nd:YAG laser. The nonlinear optical efficiency of the LAIn crystal was studied using modified Kurtz-Perry powder technique. The hardness, Meyer index, yield strength and elastic stiffness constant were calculated for the grown crystal using Vickers microhardness tester. The variation of dielectric constant and dielectric loss of the grown crystals as a function of frequency has been investigated at different temperatures. The melting point and thermal stability of the LAIn single crystal have been studied by thermo gravimetric analysis and differential thermal analysis (TG/DTA).