High-resolution liquid refractive-index sensor using reflective arrayed-waveguide grating

A high-resolution sensor for measuring the refractive index of liquids using a reflective arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) is proposed. The refractive index of a liquid placed in the groove of the arrayed region is measured via the shift of the maximum intensity in the imaging plane of the AWG owing to the phase change in the region. The refractive index can be monitored in real time by measuring the power ratio between two output waveguides of the AWG with a narrow-band source. A mathematical model based on Fourier optics and wave optics is established. A fitting formula for the relationship between the power ratio and the refractive index of liquid is derived. The results of the study show that the proposed method can eliminate the effects of instability of the light source and the inner loss of the system and provide a refractive index resolution of 10⁻⁷.     

Measurement of refractive index variation of liquids by surface plasmon resonance and wavelength-modulated heterodyne interferometry

In this study an alternative method based on surface plasmon resonance is proposed for in-situ monitoring of variation in the refractive index of a test sample. A wavelength-modulated light source and an unequal-path-length optical configuration heterodyne interferometer are used to detect the phase difference change, which can then be used to estimate the change in the refractive index of a test sample. The experimental results demonstrate a phase stability of 0.02°. The resolution power of the refractive index is 1.5 × 10^− 6 RIU. This method has several advantages over previously used methods such as simple optical setup, easier operation in real time, and low cost.     

Tunable phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating based on a microchannel fabricated by a femtosecond laser

A phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating(PS-FBG) based on a microchannel was proposed and realized by combining the pointby-point scanning method with chemical etching. The PS-FBG is composed of a fiber Bragg grating(FBG) and a microchannel through the fiber core. The microchannel can introduce phase shift into the FBG. What is more important is that it exposes the fiber core to the external environment. The phase shift peak is sensitive to the liquid refractive index, and it shows a linear refractive index response wavelength and intensity sensitivity of 2.526 nm/RIU and-111 d B/RIU, respectively.Therefore, such gratings can be used as sensors or tunable filters.     

Design and optimisation of high-brightness 980 nm laser diodes with distributed phase correction

Designs for 980 nm Al _x Ga_1–x As/In_0.2Ga_0.8As/GaAs high-power, high-brightness semiconductor lasers/amplifiers with distributed phase correction and short-cavity lengths (i.e. cavity lengths 560–1040 m) are presented. The proposed lasers/amplifiers employ a single mode feed waveguide coupled to a power amplifier with a laterally graded effective refractive index (GRIN) profile to control the lateral mode shape and phase. The lateral index of the power amplifier has a hyperbolic secant (HYSEC) profile, which can be approximately realised by tailoring the effective refractive index of the amplifier using a series of discrete etches. The epitaxial and structure designs of the laterally discretised GRIN lasers/amplifiers are presented. Finally, a method for improving the effective refractive index discretisation is described.     

重构多信道光纤光栅的改进离散层析算法

对重构多信道光纤光栅的离散层析算法进行了优化.在各信道加入相移的基础上,运用非线性最小二乘法对耦合系数进行高斯曲线拟合,降低了折射率调制深度的最大值且可以将剧烈变化的折射率调制深度平滑化.仿真表明,较之改进前的折射率调制最大值（0.001 3）,利用新算法在折射率调制最大值为0.000 5时成功设计了一个8信道光纤光栅,极大地降低了对光纤光敏性的要求.同时,折射率调制曲线的平滑化降低了光栅的实际刻写难度.     

A refractive index interferometry method based on the X-ray crystallography

The absorption contrast image is very low for those weakly absorbing materials or weak phase object, such as the soft biological tissues, however, the phase item value of refractive index is a thousand larger than the absorption item, therefore the refractive index interferometry method is expected to be a new imaging tool for them. An interferometry method based on the X-ray crystallography is explored to the measurement of refractive index in this paper. The theoretical foundation, the optical design, the crystal transistor performance are the key parts to this interferometry method based on the X-ray crystallography. We give out a special refractive index detection scheme, using a laboratory hard X-ray source, and four single Si crystals. With this instrument, refractive index profile of those weak phase object can be unfolded accurately using this method. This refractive index interferometry method based on the X-ray crystallography will provide a new research tool for those special material properties or biological tissues study.     

Measurement of Refractive Index for High Reflectance Materials with Terahertz Time Domain Reflection Spectroscopy

A method to measure the refractive index for high reflectance materials in the terahertz range with terahertz time domain reflection spectroscopy is proposed. In this method, the THz waveforms reflected by a silicon wafer and high reflectance sample are measured respectively. The refractive index of the silicon wafer, measured with the THz time domain transmission spectroscopy, is used as a reference in the THz time domain reflective spectroscopy. Therefore, the complex refractive index of the sample can be obtained by resorting to the known reflective index of the silicon and the Fresnel law. To improve the accuracy of the phase shift, the Kramers-Kronig transform is adopted. This method is also verified by the index of the silicon in THz reflection spectroscopy. The bulk metal plates have been taken as the sample, and the experimentally obtained metallic refractive indexes are compared with the simple Drude model.     

OMNIDIRECTIONAL HIGH REFLECTOR FOR INFRARED WAVELENGTH

We have purposed the design of omnidirectional high reflectors with wide bandwidth (nearly 6300A⁰) for the infrared wavelength. Using translational matrix method for numerical calculation, it is found that a complete photonic band gap high reflector covering the wavelength region 11500A⁰ to 17800A⁰ is obtained for the quarter wave stack air / (n_L n_H)⁷ / air by using the tellurium (n=4.60) and TiO₂ (n=2.35) as material of high reflective index and SiO₂(n=1.45) low refractive index. Due to high refractive index of contrast of the structure i.e. SiO₂/tellurium, a large complete photonic band gap, omnidirectional high reflector, has been observed for the infrared wavelengths. This type of omnidirectional high reflector can be used in telecommunication. Besides this, we have studied the effective refractive indices (phase and group) of the proposed structures. It is observed that the effective refractive indices (phase and group) of the high omnidirectional reflector band are largely changed near the band edges due to the high refractive index of contrast, and the reflections from the internal interfaces of the structure.     

Internal inspection of semi-transparent objects by digital holographic micro-tomography

The combined use of digital holographic microscopy and computer tomography, here named digital holographic micro-tomography, is used to examine the interior of transparent channels. The proposed method is used to identify internal obstacles inside of transparent troughs having slightly different refractive index. The method is based in the acquisition of a set of digital holograms of the specimen whereas it is axially rotated from 0° to 180°. The phase differences retrieved from the obtained holograms are the inputs to a computerised axial tomography procedure. The technique has been numerically modelled in order to find the optimal tomographic conditions and also to realise the minimum difference of refractive index the method could detect. The obtained results show the feasibility of the proposed method for the non-destructive evaluation of transparent micro-objects.     

Flow field's temperature partition reconstruction based on its phase distribution

Aiming at the effect of species composition distribution on flow field's temperature reconstruction from the experimentally measured refractive index, a temperature partition reconstruction method based on flow field's phase distribution is proposed. Moiré deflection tomography is chosen to obtain the refractive index of a flame with probe wavelength of 808 nm. Enlightened by the visual characteristic of optical computerized tomography (OCT) for flow field and the practical structure of the flame, it is divided into three regions in radial direction based on its phase distribution. The essence is that the temperature is reconstructed with adopting different species composition for different regions. Finally, the rationality of the method is analyzed.     

Full-field refractive index measurement with simultaneous phase-shift interferometry

Using the phenomenon of total internal reflection and a beam splitting device, a technique of simultaneous phase-shift interferometry is proposed for measuring the full-field refractive index. Because this method applies a beam splitting device that mimics the characteristics of beam splitting and phase modulation, four interferemetric images of various phase distributions can be simultaneously captured. Therefore, this setup can avoid errors caused by non-simultaneous capturing of images and offers the benefits of high stability, ease of operation, and real-time measurement. Furthermore, using the phenomenon of total internal reflection, the phase difference between p- and s-polarized light varies considerably with the refractive index of a tested specimen. This can substantially increase the measurement resolution. The feasibility of this method is verified using an experiment, and the measurement resolution can be higher than 3.65 × 10⁻⁴ RIU.     

An electromagnetic parameters extraction method for metamaterials based on phase unwrapping technique

Abstract

A new method of extracting effective permittivity and permeability of metamaterials has been developed in this paper. Scattering parameters are used to represent effective wave impedance and refractive index of the metamaterials. Considering analytical continuation of effective refractive index of the metamaterials in the upper half of a complex angular frequency plane, a phase unwrapping technique has been implemented to solve branch ambiguity of the refractive index caused by complex inverse cosine function. An empirical formula to estimate the starting frequency in the phase unwrapping technique has been developed to improve the efficiency of the parameter retrieval procedure. Numerical results including five slabs of rods and split-ring resonators (SRRs) and a structure composed of two SRRs and four capacitively loaded strips are given to demonstrate good accuracy, high efficiency, and noise insensitivity of the proposed retrieval method.     

Measurement of small differences in refractive indices of solutions with interferometric optical method

Based on the principles of both surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and heterodyne interferometry, an optical method for measuring small differences in refractive indices of solutions was proposed. On a specially designed probe, two light beams are incident on both reference and test solutions. The phase differences between the p- and s-polarizations of each reflected light under SPR condition are measured simultaneously with heterodyne interferometric technique. The phase values are substituted into special equations derived from Fresnel's equations. Finally, the difference between the refractive indices of these two solutions can be estimated. The feasibility of this method was demonstrated and the measurement sensitivity of refractive index can reach a value of at least 8.57×10⁻⁷. This method should bear the merits of a simple structure, easy operation, high sensitivity and rapid measurement.     

Three-dimensional reconstruction of refractive index inhomogeneities in optical phase elements

In this paper the quantitative approach to 3D reconstruction of refractive index inhomogeneity of static phase object is presented. The method combines multidirectional phase shifting interferometry technique with tomographic reconstruction. It is aimed on testing of optical material and elements with both symmetric and non-symmetric refractive index distributions. The optimisation of the parameters used in filtered backprojection reconstruction algorithm is performed in order to maximise the overall accuracy of measurement. Experiments are performed to verify the methodology and parameters obtained from optimisation procedure. The results prove high performance of the proposed measuring procedure.     

Accurate prediction of refractive index of inorganic oxides by chemical formula

A method is proposed for estimation of mean refractive index of a complex inorganic oxide whose chemical composition is known. This method is based on using mean refractive indices of simple oxides. Applicability of the method has been tested for a representative set of ∼120 known oxide crystals. It has been shown that mean refractive index can be predicted with possible error of 0-15% depending on the chemical nature of the compound. The majority of oxides show acceptable difference <5% between theoretical and experimental refractive index values and the mean error level for a set of 124 oxide crystals is as low as ∼5%. Refractive indices of a set of simple oxides are estimated by the Lorenz-Lorentz relation. Full table of refractive indices of simple oxides for all elements of Periodic Table is proposed.     

长周期光纤光栅折射率特性仿真的新方法

基于长周期光纤光栅的模式耦合机理,提出一种快速模拟长周期光纤光栅折射率特性的方法。该方法在计算包层模式的有效折射率时分开计算,在环境折射率小于包层折射率时采用二分法和分步搜索法结合计算包层模式的有效折射率,在环境折射率大于包层折射率时采用Nelder-Mead加分步搜索法求解包层模式的有效折射率。在应用谐振波长的决定式求解与环境折射率的匹配的谐振波长时,采用变区间应用二分法求解而不是传统的逐步搜索法求解谐振波长。数值结果与实验结果做了对比,两者基本一致。实践证明,该方法方便快捷,比一般的方法速度提高7倍以上。     

带多孔硅表面缺陷腔的半无限光子晶体Tamm态及其折射率传感机理

结合表面缺陷半无限光子晶体Tamm态与多孔硅光学传感机理,在光子晶体表面缺陷腔中引入多孔硅,并利用其高效的承载机制,提出基于多孔硅表面缺陷光子晶体Tamm态的折射率传感结构.在半无限光子晶体中缺陷腔与原来的周期性分层介质结构的界面上存在Tamm态,通过入射角度调制使其在缺陷腔中实现多次全反射,并在缺陷腔中加入吸收介质,使谐振波长在缺陷腔中完成衰荡,从而在反射谱中得到缺陷峰;调整光子晶体参数,使缺陷峰的半高全宽得到优化,提高其品质因数(Q值);在此基础上,根据Goos-H?nchen相位移与谐振波长的关系,建立由待测样本折射率改变所导致的多孔硅表面吸附层有效折射率变化与缺陷峰值波长漂移之间的关系模型,并分析其折射率传感特性.结果表明,此生物传感结构Q值为1429,灵敏度为546.67 nm/RIU,证明了该传感结构的有效性,可为高Q值和高灵敏度折射率传感器的设计提供一定的理论参考.     

High Flattened Comb Filter with Precise Channel Spacing Based on Linearly Chirped Fiber Bragg Grating and Phase Compensation

Abstract

A novel approach to implement high flattened comb filters with precise channel spacing based on DC phase compensation is proposed. Channel wavelength error and peak reflectivity variation are discussed and calculated. A phase compensation method by simply changing the DC refractive index is proposed. Fiber Bragg gratings with different DC phase shifts are fabricated, which indicates that an arbitrary DC phase shift can be introduced precisely. A high flattened comb filter with precise 50-GHz channel spacing is realized with the help of a micrometer-precision translation stage. Then the peak reflectivity variation with and without phase compensation for different chirp coefficients is researched.     

Ultrahigh sensitivity polarimetric strain sensor based upon D-shaped optical fiber and surface plasmon resonance technology

An ultrahigh sensitivity polarimetric strain sensor is proposed based upon a four-layer D-shaped optical fiber and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology. In contrast to existing SPR-based sensors, which are based on changes in the refractive index of the overlayer, the sensor proposed in this study is based on the change in the refractive index of the fiber core in response to the application of an axial load. Specifically, the phase difference between the P and S waves after passing through the sensor under SPR conditions is measured using a common-path heterodyne interferometer and is used to determine the corresponding change in the refractive index of the core, from which the strain is then inversely derived. The experimental results show that the sensitivity of the proposed sensor is around 2.19×10? deg/ε, i.e., degree/strain. By contrast, that of a conventional (non-SPR) polarimetric fiber sensor is just 5.2×102 deg/ε. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the sensor proposed in this study represents the first reported attempt to exploit the refractive index change of the core of an SPR-based fiber sensor for strain measurement purposes.     

Optical modulator based on negative refractive material

Using negative refractive material slow-wave waveguide, a compact and integrated optical modulator is proposed for the first time to our knowledge. The slow group velocities of light, which are readily achievable in negative refractive material waveguide, can dramatically increase the induced phase shifts caused by small changes in the refractive index. Modulation operation with a 40 μm long negative refractive material slow-wave waveguide of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) structure was demonstrated by using finite-element method. The size of the novel optical modulator is 100 times shorter than that of the conventional lithium niobate MZI optical modulator.