Modelling of rib waveguide bends for sensor applications

Wave propagation through curved bends in integrated optical waveguides is governed by the evanescent field and the radiation loss of the eigenmodes. Since these parameters are influenced by the refractive index of the surrounding medium, circular bends in rib waveguides have been successfully employed as chemical sensors for liquids and gases. In this paper the electromagnetic field, the refractive index and the radiation loss of the eigenmodes are precisely determined by a fully vectorial approach based on the method of lines. An axial discretization and Bessel functions of complex order are employed for the rigorous computation of the evanescent field. The intensity distributions of the first modes in a rib waveguide are presented. The influence of the rib height on the sensitivity of the modal index to the refractive index of the surrounding medium is investigated. The results are useful for the optimization of the sensor design.     

Fiber-optic evanescent field absorption sensor: A theoretical evaluation

Abstract

A comparative study of the fiber-optic evanescent field absorption sensors based on parabolic, linear, and exponential-linear taper profiles has been carried out. The expressions for the effective evanescent absorption coefficient of the fluid have been derived for a diffuse source as well as a collimated source–microscope objective combination. It has been shown that the sensitivity of the sensor depends on the taper profile and the type of the source used in addition to the numerical aperture of the fiber and the refractive index of the fluid. For a given taper profile, the sensitivity is more in the case of the collimated source–microscope objective combination as compared to the diffuse source illumination. Further, the sensor with the exponential-linear taper profile is more sensitive than those having parabolic and linear profiles in the case of both sources.     

Fiber-optic evanescent field absorption sensor: A theoretical evaluation

A comparative study of the fiber-optic evanescent field absorption sensors based on parabolic, linear, and exponential-linear taper profiles has been carried out. The expressions for the effective evanescent absorption coefficient of the fluid have been derived for a diffuse source as well as a collimated source-microscope objective combination. It has been shown that the sensitivity of the sensor depends on the taper profile and the type of the source used in addition to the numerical aperture of the fiber and the refractive index of the fluid. For a given taper profile, the sensitivity is more in the case of the collimated source-microscope objective combination as compared to the diffuse source illumination. Further, the sensor with the exponential-linear taper profile is more sensitive than those having parabolic and linear profiles in the case of both sources.     

Analysis of Nonlinear TE Waves in a Periodic Refractive Index Structure with a Nonlinear Cladding

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Influence of temperature on the optical and structural properties along the diameter of optical fibres

Multiple-beam Fizeau fringes technique with an opto-thermal device is used to study the effect of temperature on the optical properties of Philips graded-index optical fibres. The refractive index profile of the optical fibre is measured at different temperatures. From these profiles the opto-thermal coefficient, the profile shape parameter α, the cladding/core maximum refractive index difference Δn and some guidance parameters of the optical fibre that play an important role in communication are determined. The variation of oscillation and dispersion energies along the diameter of the optical fibre (energy profile) are calculated at different temperatures. An empirical formula of the energy profile is obtained. Microinterferograms are given for illustrations.     

D-shape polymer optical fibres for surface plasmon resonance sensing

We experimentally studied three different D-shape polymer optical fibres with an exposed core for their applications as surface plasmon resonance sensors. The first one was a conventional D-shape fibre with no microstructure while in two others the fibre core was surrounded by two rings of air holes. In one of the microstructured fibres we introduced special absorbing inclusions placed outside the microstructure to attenuate leaky modes. We compared the performance of the surface plasmon resonance sensors based on the three fibres. We showed that the fibre bending enhances the resonance in all investigated fibres. The measured sensitivity of about 610 nm/RIU for the refractive index of glycerol solution around 1.350 is similar in all fabricated sensors. However, the spectral width of the resonance curve is significantly lower for the fibre with inclusions suppressing the leaky modes.     

Apodized fibre Bragg grating with modulated refractive index change for transmissive gain equalization

This paper presents a new enhanced design of fibre Bragg grating for flattening the gain profile of an erbium-doped fibre amplifier in transmission configuration. This grating has modulation of refractive index change and constant chirp rate, wherein both profiles of the parameters are properly apodized. The design utilizes an alternative approach to the renowned inverse scattering method, yet produces a similar spectral response quality and conceptually simpler. Moreover, it offers precise control over all parameters of the grating structure. It is shown that the design approach could produce gain-flattening filters of satisfactory quality through simulations using the accurate transfer matrix method.     

Efficient coupling of a laser to a waveguide using a taper designed by conformal mapping

Maximising the optical power collected in a waveguide from the diffracting field of a semiconductor laser is desirable in optical fibre communication systems. However, the spot size and phase front curvature of the laser field usually makes a poor overlap with the mode of the receiving waveguide. Various proposals have been made to improve this coupling. This paper presents the design of a tapered waveguide section, having the correct geometry and refractive index profile, to efficiently capture and transform the rapidly diffracting light from a semiconductor laser to a planar wavefront in a straight waveguide. Experimentally, such an approach requires the refining of available techniques (UV exposure, ion implantation or diffusion) to obtain the required grading of the refractive index profile within the tapered input section of the receiving waveguide.     

Evanescent field devices: a comparison between tapered optical fibres and polished or D-fibres

Abstact This paper examines the operation of tapered optical fibres and polished or D-fibres as evanescent field devices. Both devices operate through the evanescent field outside the fibre interacting with chemicals in the surrounding external medium. The incoming field is absorbed and may be reradiated through fluorescence. The absorption and fluorescence recapture characteristics of both configurations are compared, showing that the tapered fibre device permits a stronger interaction and is therefore more efficient. Furthermore, it is shown that the characteristics of both configurations are sensitive to the refractive index of the external medium.     

Thermally stable optical fibre Bragg grating wavelength reference

The inherent temperature dependence of optical fibre Bragg gratings is caused mainly by the positive thermo-optic effect of the fibre core material, and it results in an increase of Bragg wavelength with temperature. Special mounting techniques may be designed in order to compensate this thermo-optic effect by counter-acting effects: decreasing mechanical strain, as well as a decreasing effective refractive index for the guided light wave by evanescent field interaction with a liquid of negative thermo-optic effect. Because of the non-linear interaction characteristics, exact temperature compensation is obtained for a certain temperature, which depends on the design parameters. Such stabilised fibre Bragg gratings find application as wavelength references in Bragg grating sensor networks.     

Automatic fringe analysis of the induced anisotropy of bent optical fibres

A new theoretical model considering the refraction of the incident light beam by the fibre is suggested to determine the refractive index profile of bent optical fibres. This new model (slabs model) considering the cross section of the bent optical fibre consists of large number of slabs. The slabs model bases on the refraction of the incident beam by the fibre. The refractive index profile of the optical fibre cladding before bending obtained using the automated Fizeau interferometer with the aid of suggested model is compared with other models such as, the homogenous model and the multilayer model to verify the ability of this slab model. The refractive index profile of the bent optical fibre cladding is investigated using this suggested model. In addition, the new model is used to obtain the induced birefringence and the guiding parameters. The bending radius is recommended to be greater than 7.1 mm for the used optical fibre. The consideration of the refraction increases the accuracy of the results.     

Linearly polarised three-colour lasing emission from an evanescent wave pumped and gain coupled fibre laser

A novel Whispering--Gallery--Mode (WGM) fibre laser, emitting linearly polarised three-colour light, is demonstrated by pumping and gain coupling with evanescent waves. The pump light is longitudinally coupled into a bare optical fibre immersed in a dye solution of lower refractive index. The dye molecules around the bare fibre are excited by the evanescent waves of pump light when they propagate along the fibre in a total internal reflection. When the pump beam within the fibre is a meridian beam, the WGM lasing emission from the fibre laser is a linearly polarised transverse electric wave, while it is a mixed wave of the linearly polarised transverse electric and magnetic waves if the pump beam is a skew beam within the fibre. Because the excited molecules are located within the evanescent field of WGM, a good spatial overlap between the dye gain and the evanescent field leads to a high pumping efficiency and a longer gain distance along the fibre. Once the bare fibre is inserted into three glass capillaries filled with Rhodamine 6G, 610 and 640 dye solutions, respectively, WGM laser oscillations at the wavelengths of 567--575, 605--614 and 656--666~nm occur simultaneously, and a linearly polarised three-colour lasing emission is achieved in a single optical fibre.     

Near field and far field power distributions in a multimode graded fibre

It is shown in this paper that the near field and far field power distributions corresponding to any distribution of rays in an arbitrary graded fibre, reach a steady state along the fibre. This steady state is usually a function of the input distribution of rays and of the refractive index profile of the fibre. The case of parallel beam injection is considered and an analytical expression for the near field power distributions for any arbitrary profile is found. This suggests a new method of refractive index profile measurement which is free of leaky ray corrections and can be very sensitive near the optimum profile for time dispersion.     

Design and analysis of a kind of large flattened mode optical fibre

In this paper, a refractive index profile design enabling us to obtain a flat modal field around the fibre centre is investigated. The theoretical approach for designing such multilayer large flattened mode (LFM) optical fibres is presented. A comparison is made between the properties of a three-layer LFM structure and a standard step-index profile with the same core size. The obtained results indicate that the effective area of the LFM fibre is about twice as large as that of the standard step-index fibre, but the LFM fibre has less effective ability to filter out the higher order modes than the standard step-index fibre with the same bending radius.     

Optical sensors based on Fabry–Perot resonator and fringes of equal thickness structure

We propose theoretically two optical sensor structures based on Fabry–Perot resonator and fringes of equal thickness structure. Different from the conventional slab waveguide sensors in which the sample interacts with the evanescent field in the cladding layer, the proposed sensors contain the sample in the core layer. The first proposed sensor comprises a piezoelectric material as a substrate with the driving potential difference as the sensing probe for refractive index changes of the sample. The second sensor comprises fringes of equal thickness structure with the number of fringes per unit length is the probe for changes in the index of the sample. The calculations reveal that the proposed sensors have high sensitivity to changes in the refractive index of the sample.     

轴向隐失波激励的回音壁模式光纤激光器

采用轴向隐失波激励增益的方式,使激光增益区域局限在光纤回音壁模式的模场区域内,显著地降低了回音壁模式光纤激光辐射的抽运阈值,由此形成一种低阈值的回音壁模式光纤激光器.在微焦耳量级的低抽运能量条件下,用回音壁模式光纤激光器研究了激光染料的浓度效应.实验结果表明,随着激光染料浓度的增加,回音壁模式激光辐射的波长向长波方向移动,激光波长范围变宽.用回音壁模式染料激光的四能级模型得到激光上能级和所有能级上的分子数比值γ(λ)曲线后,很好地解释了实验结果.低抽运阈值的回音壁模式光纤激光器,为研究液体激光现象提供了极为便利的手段.     

掺染料微结构光纤荧光传感器的理论分析

针对一般光纤荧光传感器收集荧光能力不足的缺陷,设计了一种在微结构聚合物光纤的空气孔内填充掺有机染料高折射率液体的荧光传感器.使用可调节边界条件傅里叶分解法计算了这种微结构光纤的模场分布,分析了光纤结构参量和液体折射率对荧光捕获分数的影响,结果表明,使用小纤芯半径和高于纤芯折射率的液体可以增强激发光的吸收效率,增大荧光捕获分数,提高光纤荧光传感器的灵敏度.     

Fabrication and study of a metal-clad planar waveguide based biosensor

A metal-clad planar optical waveguide biosensor having five layer structure has been fabricated to study the detection of Pseudomonas and Pseudomonas-like bacteria. This waveguide is designed to increase the overlap of the evanescent field extension from the sensor face with the micro-scale biological objects in the bulk solution, to place most of the entire volume of the bacteria within the evanescent field. The results presented here leads to a significant optimization of the important design parameters to sense micro-scale biological objects. We have compared our computed results with the results obtained by similar non-metallic clad biosensor. The effect of affinity-layer refractive index on the sensitivity of these planar waveguides is also studied. We have shown this for some special cases by obtaining reflection dips at the particular angle of incidence. Our observations show that the metal-clad planar optical waveguide biosensor having higher affinity refractive index will give better sensitivity than other similar non-metallic clad biosensor. The validation of metal-clad planar optical waveguide sensor for the detection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium is also made.     

Determination of GR-IN optical fibre parameters from transverse interferograms considering the refraction of the incident ray by the fibre

The core–cladding refractive index difference Δn and the index gradient profile parameter of the graded index (GR-IN) optical fibre has been determined. The curve representing the real path, in the core region, due to refraction of the beam and the change in the exit wavefront are considered. Multiple-beam Fizeau fringes and two-beam interference Pluta polarizing microscope, are used for this investigation. A new method, based on a derived mathematical expression, is used with a prepared computer program to estimate the fringe shift inside GR-IN of the fibre core. The estimated and experimental values of the fringe shift, along the core radius, are used to obtain the refractive index profile of the optical fibre. A comparison between the new method and a previous model considering the refraction has been shown. Microinterferograms are given for illustrations.     

Measuring method for the refractive index profile of optical glass fibres

A new method for measuring the refractive index profile of optical glass fibres is described. This simply monitors the reflection of a focused laser beam from a polished fibre end face. Detailed tests on the accuracy and resolution of the method are described and the index profiles of several fibres are given as an example of its feasibility.